We Fit Together
by Suicidal Mickey Mouse
Summary: A continuance in the lives of the Rent crowd. Events that bring them closer, events that tear them apart. Is Slash MarkRoger. Complete.
1. CameraBoy

Disclaimer: Rent is fabulous; however, I don't own it.

Author's notes: I think that everything is pretty well explained. If you have questions just ask them. Takes place a year after Rent ends. It will be slash (Mark/Roger) by the end, but I feel like it has to develop more, so I couldn't just dive into the relationship.

Prologue

"December 24th, midnight eastern standard time." Mark panned his camera around the street near his own. It was just as seedy as always. All the usual crimes and acts of depravity were being committed, but for some reason everything seemed quieter on this Christmas Eve. A heavy snow was falling. A snow that hit his glasses and blurred his vision, but Mark didn't care. "It's been a while since I've checked in I guess. Everything's gone to shit."

Mark sat on a bench, and stopped his camera on the flickering Cat Scratch Club sign. "Mimi's disappeared again. She's been gone nine months, and even Roger thinks she's dead. Speaking of Roger, well, he's OK I guess. I've made sure he takes his meds and eats, and he goes out in a while…well…he's out…somewhere tonight." Mark paused continuing on. "Maureen and Joanne have been their usual selves. In other words, they're a party." He deadpanned. "Last time I checked Collins was teaching in Boston, which means he'll be back soon." Mark felt the bench he was sitting give off a paralyzing cold that entered his body through thin and worn jeans. "And as for me, I can no longer feel my ass."

He continued panning the camera, stopping on three guys nearby. "Zoom in on drug dealer scum. That's right, they haven't left." The three were exchanging money and packets of drugs; that is until one of them pointed towards Mark. Then they were walking towards him angrily. As they came, Mark started to wind the camera. "What have you done now, Mark?" He asked himself quietly.

"Hey Camera Boy," A gaunt man with dark circles under his eyes, who looked like he hadn't had a shower in a month spoke. "We don't like being filmed."

The fight or flight notion in Mark's mind was running on high speed, telling him to just mutter an apology and walk away. Another part of him, the part that he was sure both Roger and Angel had influenced, was telling him that he should stay, because this might be a good image for the film. So the rest of him found a compromise between the two. He stayed, not moving or speaking at all.

The same man spoke again. "You aren't going to talk to us Camera Boy?" He shoved Mark a little with one hand.

"You know, I'd really appreciate it if you didn't touch me. I wouldn't want to catch lice, and whatever other parasites that you have crawling all on you." It was Maureen's great influence that got Mark to say his, in his less than authoritative manner.

"Hey I know you." The second man spoke. His skin was less sallow, and gracing his face was a scruffy goatee. He wore a leather jacket, and was cleaner than the first man. He appeared to have had a shower within the past two weeks. "You're Roger's little bitch."

"And you're Roger's ex-dealer." Mark tried to sound braver, putting emphasis on the ex.

The dealer glared. "You know what guys? I think that Camera Boy here would 'really appreciate it if' we taught him a lesson about what happens to people who stick their noses where they don't belong." He mocked, and then men grinned at each other, before turning back to Mark. The dealer landed a punch to Mark's gut that sent him doubling over, and knocked the wind out of him. This was quickly followed by one to his side, and one to his face. This caused his camera to fly out of his hand into a snow bank, and then it caused him to go down hard into the pavement, his glasses going askew.

The three seemed to continuously beat on Mark. To him it felt like hours, in reality it was only minutes. Even towards the beginning, his chest was on fire, his head was spinning, and blood was pouring from his nose, and the corner of his mouth. By the time he had hit the ground there was no hope of him fighting back. It was all a matter of survival now, and the best that Mark could do to ensure survival was a weak attempt of curling into the fetal position. He remained for the most part straight, allowing for more kicks and punches to his torso. This onslaught continued to the point where Mark was reduced to pitiful straining tears.

This was when the dealer stopped. "You really are a little bitch aren't you? Can't even handle a few punches before you start crying." He laughed harshly, and turned around for a moment. "You two finish him off. I have some business to take care of."

The dealer turned and left, leaving the other two behind. The one that had spoken first reached into his coat and pulled something that Mark couldn't recognize until the hollow and cold muzzle was placed against his forehead, and there was a click that Mark barely heard through the blood swimming in his ears. This was what caused a look of pure terror on his face. "Please..." He pleaded in a hoarse, weak, and desperate voice. "Please…don't kill me. I didn't mean the whole thing about the parasites. Please…take whatever you want from me…just don't kill me."

The third druggie who hadn't spoken yet was the cleanest and the healthiest looking. Clearly he was the newbie of the group. "Blade man, come on. Let's just leave him." His voice was almost nervous. "He's not going to say anything." He paused to look at Mark. "Will you?" Mark shook his head.

Blade glared for a moment and then sighed. "Fine." He put the gun back in his coat. "I do like this coat though." He reached down and grabbed the sleeve of Mark's jacket, unceremoniously ripping it off of him and causing the filmmaker to flip roughly onto his stomach. Mark ground and after a minute felt a light slap in the small of his back. "Thanks for the stuff Camera Boy." He gave Mark one last kick in the ribs before the two left.

Mark groaned again as he moved his head gingerly to face his camera that was miraculously still filming, and then spoke. "December 25th. 12:05 am, eastern standard time." He coughed and blood came in a river out of his mouth. After a moment of shallow breathing he started again. "It's cold as hell, and I think that I might die. Merry Fucking Christmas."

There's the prologue. Chapter One will come very soon.


	2. Three Stages of Mark

Disclaimer: Rent is fabulous; however, I don't own it.

Author's notes: This is chapter one of We Fit Together. I hope that you still like it. I also apologize if any of the characters are out of character. I've tried my best to keep them in, but I don't always connect with characters to write them properly, even when I have to include them. I hope they're OK.

I resurrected Santa Fe, and then added a verse. Please do not yell at me if it sucks.

Chapter One

Roger looked at Collins with a smile on his face as they exited some small, cheap restaurant. "I would love to be you for a day Tom." The two had run into each other, not soon after Roger had left the apartment and then went to dinner.

"What for?" Tom laughed. "My life's no better than yours is."

"Oh Yeah? Then how come you're always so happy?"

"That's just good old Tommy boy's nature." Tom lightly slapped Roger's shoulder as they started down the street. "I'd much rather be you for a day."

Roger loved it when Collins was around. Tom was the philosophical one who could always put things in perspective. Which is why Roger was so happy to have met with him; Collins would be able to help him get over Mimi. Mark, who had been doing everything to help Roger, was good at listening. He was good at making sure that Mark stayed healthy. Mark was good to vent to, but Collins was an advice giver. "Why's that?"

"You're always around your friends." Collins informed pointedly, sticking his hands in his pockets. "They'll always be there for you."

Roger sighed dejectedly. "Like who?"

"Joanne, Maureen, and Mark."

"Those three? Joanne gives me headaches, Maureen makes you dance, and Mark…well, Mark is someone specia- Mark is like a brother." Roger corrected himself hastily before he continued. "Besides, they're your friends too."

"Yeah, but not like they can be with you. If you've got a problem, in five minutes they'll be by your side."

Roger shook his head. "They're around 24/7. And they're always reminding you, take your AZT. And Mark is always shoving food in your face to make sure you eat."

"That doesn't really bother you."

"Well…no, but…"

"Let's face it Rog, it's not the people bothering you." Collins was laughing again. "It's living in this hellhole."

For a moment the two walked in a silence. Roger had a memory racing through his head. After a moment he brought it up. "Let's open up a restaurant in Santa Fe, oh sunny Santa Fe would be nice. Let's open up a restaurant in Santa Fe, and leave this to the roaches and the mice." He was joking, but after a moment Collins came back with a reply.

"What the hell's so wrong with opening it right here? Just because it's warmer don't make it nice. I say we open up the restaurant right here, 'cause who do you know, that cares about a few mice?" Collins gave his reply back, knowing it would settle Roger's thoughts. He had come up with notion a while back, but he knew that leaving would be worse for Roger.

After another moment, Roger shook some snow from his hair. "Thanks for showing Tom. You give me a break."

"From the madness?"

"And the boredom. Not much happens between Maureen's protests. But when she protests things always get exciting."

"When is her next one?"

"Who knows? She hasn't found something unjust yet. Most of the time she's just toying with Mark and Joanne."

"Where is he anyway? Doesn't he love filming what you do?"

Roger sighed a little. "He's been working on Today 4 U, making it more like a full documentary or something. So he's trying to get a typical Christmas Celebration on film."

"Oh, he wants the crack heads, and the hookers." Roger nodded. "Well, let's go back to your place and wait for him. He won't be that long."

The two turned the corner by the Cat Scratch Club, and started down the sidewalk, walking in a silence until Roger saw a form lying on the ground. For a moment he thought it was just some homeless junkie, but it was when he got closer that he saw the red snow next to the form. "Hey." He tapped Collins' chest as a gesture to point it out to him, before jogging up and kneeling next to the face down form. The man's hair was matted with blood, and there was a pool of blood around his head, that was mixed with vomit near his mouth. A thin layer of snow was across the man, who Roger could see wasn't wearing a coat, only a worn turtleneck sweater. "Hey man, you OK?" The only response Roger got was a groan. He put his hand on his shoulder and gently flipped the man over, catching his first glimpse of a bloody and bruising face. Across his eyes were glasses that were broken almost beyond recognition.

"Oh my god. It's Mark." Roger informed as Collins caught up with him.

"What? Collins got down next to him. "What happened?" He looked down at their camera wielding friend. He wasn't conscious per say, but his teeth were chattering, and the blood seemed to be flowing steadily.

"I don't know." Roger started to take his coat off, and put it over his friend. "He's cold as ice."

"He needs a doctor." Collins stood back up. "Stay with him, I'll go call for help." Then he took off.

Roger gently removed Mark's glasses, and placed them in his shirt pocket. "Mark." He spoke quietly. "Mark can you hear me? Come on Mark?"

Mark's eyelids fluttered a little, but with a little more coaxing from Roger they opened. "Roger?" He asked hoarsely.

"Yeah Mark." Roger gave a small smile. "I'm here. Tom's going to get some help."

"There's about five of you." Mark coughed up some more blood. Neither symptom went unnoticed by Roger, but he didn't know what to do about them. "And it's cold…aren't you cold?" Now it seemed that Mark was reverting to his usual self. Take care of others before as you would take care of yourself, but always before you take care of yourself. "Take your coat back." He coughed again. "You'll freeze."

"You need it more."

"I'm tired." A shiver ripped through Mark's body. "Can I go to sleep?" Now it was as though Mark was a completely different person. It was as though Mark was a young child.

Roger knew that Mark had three parts to his personality. The selfless filmmaker, the one he saw the most, the angry one, the one he saw the most after the usual; the one that he fought with, and he naïve, immature child, the one Roger knew was there, but rarely made an appearance.

For a moment Roger was thinking back on how to handle the situation; how Mark always handled him back when he came home with one of his various issues rearing its ugly face. "Not just yet Mark. Not just yet."

"Ambulance will be here in five minutes." Collins spoke, jogging back up. "How is he?"

"Finish the movie for me…" Mark's eyes cast over to the camera in the snow. "I have to got meet Angel." His eyes fluttered.

Roger ignored Collins' question, focusing on his friend whose eyes were fighting to stay open. "Mark, no. You have to stay with me. You have to help me write another song."

"Not Musetta's Waltz." Mark glanced around again as his vision swam. "Don't forget my camera." Then his eyes closed.

For a moment Collins allowed Roger to try and wake his roommate, but at the first chord of the ambulance sirens he placed a hand on Roger's shoulder. "Come on Roger, let's let them do their thing. They need to help him."

"I know." As Roger straightened to a standing he grabbed Mark's camera, and started to brush the snow off of it. "I can't leave him."

"They'll let you ride with him." Collins assured as the ambulance pulled up and the paramedics got out. "I'll meet you at the hospital. Do you want me to get anything from your place?"

Roger ran a hand through his hair. "God…uh…he'll need his spare glasses." He tried to think. "They're , well I think they're in his bedside table. And he'll want Roosevelt."

"Roosevelt?"

"It's this…bear thing. It'll be stuffed between his wall and the mattress. He tries to hide it."

"I've got you covered." Collins nodded. "Anything else?"

"I don't think so." Roger shook his head.

"I'll meet you here then."

The paramedics were loading Mark onto a stretcher. "Is one of you coming with us?" They asked and Roger nodded. "Let's go then."

The paramedics, Roger, and an unconscious Mark got into the ambulance and as they left, Collins bent down, picking up Mark's wallet and putting it into his pocket.

There's chapter one. Chapter two will probably be up really soon, but then it'll probably be weekly updates of one or two chapters since I have to go back to school.


	3. Hell

Disclaimer: Rent is fabulous; however, I don't own it.

Author's notes: Clearly, this is chapter two.

Bits of story that are posted like this: _blah blah blah _are flashbacks.

Chapter Two

"You've reached Maureen."

"And Joanne. We can't come to the phone right now."

"We're fucki—.."

"We're busy. Leave a message."

"After the moo. Moooo."

Roger listened to Maureen and Joanne's answering machine before speaking in a tired voice. "Hey guys, it's Roger. Mark's been beat up…pretty bad. We're not sure what really happened. We're at county, but…we haven't heard anything yet. So you should come as soon as you get this." He hung up the payphone when he was done and turned around, as a doctor was approaching.

"Are you waiting for Mark Cohen?" The doctor asked and Roger nodded. "I'm Dr. Hannimore. I worked on your friend."

"How is he?" Roger asked quickly.

"He's stable." The doctor began. "However his injuries were quite substantial. I imagine if you hadn't found him when you did he would be dead right now. He's received a broken nose, a severe concussion, several fractured and bruised ribs, and major internal and external bruising."

"But he'll be all right?"

The doctor continued, ignoring Roger's question. "This of course doesn't include his minor injuries. He has a fractured wrist, a dislocated shoulder, and some smaller cuts and scrapes."

"But will he be OK?" Roger pushed.

Dr. Hannimore sighed. "For someone perfectly healthy, these injuries would be a small setback of a few days."

"Mark is perfectly healthy." Roger shook his head confused. In all the years that he had known Mark, he had never seen the boy sick. Mark was the one who always took care of him when he was sick. Saying Mark was unhealthy was…crazy.

"I'm afraid not. Mark is severely underweight. This made his injuries extremely taxing on his body. He lost more blood, faster than some people would. It made every punch that he received far more traumatic to his system." The doctor paused. "Currently he's unconscious. He hasn't fallen into a coma, but it could be a few days before he wakes up. His body is going to stay unconscious until it feels rested. But yes, he will be fine."

"Can I see him?"

Twenty minutes later Roger was sitting in the impersonal hospital room, next to Mark's bed. Mark's camera sat on the bedside table, and it was the only thing in the room that made the room seem normal, because everybody knew: If Mark went somewhere without his camera, then the apocalypse must be coming.

The room was a dingy, faded white. The walls, the sheets, the blankets, the floor…the only thing that wasn't white was Mark. Mark was in the bed that had been cranked into a halfway sitting position. His left wrist was in a white cast, and the arm was folded across his chest in a sling. His face was a myriad of hues, mostly dark purples and blues, to the point where they looked black. Both eyes were swollen and accompanied by these bruises, the right looked worse than the left. The bruises were continuous down his face, lighter on the left once again. There was an angry red scrape starting to scab over on the left side, that was it's color. The area above, below, and on his eyes seemed to be covered by small cuts. Some of them with stitches and some of them with butterfly bandages. Mark's hair was gone. The honey blond hair that was always kept lightly spiked had been shaved off to allow for the large wound on the back of his skull to be sewn up.

Roger had Mark's right hand in his, just watching him with a blank look on his face. He knew that the doctor had said that Mark would be fine, but some part of him couldn't help but think that Mark was still leaving him. That after everything that they'd been through, this was the way it would end.

_Roger stepped out side of the Massachusetts gas station, intent on getting into the car and driving as fast as he possibly could to New York where he knew an apartment and new life was waiting for him. It wasn't that his life was bad. His parents were great, letting him live with them. He had never been mistreated. He had never had any problems other than his grades at school, and even then, that wasn't a problem…he was just lazy. It was that Scarsdale was boring, and it wasn't a good place for the twenty year old to start his rock career._

_His intent was just to get into the car and go…on his own. But there was a grunt of complaint from the ground next to him when his foot collided into something soft. Looking down he saw a boy, he didn't look more than fourteen, just sitting there, breathing heavily. "Hey man, you OK?" Roger asked quietly._

_The boy looked up, revealing startling blue eyes. "W-what?" He started a little, and then continued breathing heavily._

"_I asked if you were OK. You're kind of freaking here man." Roger informed moving out of the way of the door. _

"_Uh, I'm uh… I'm fine." The boy paused again trying to catch his breath. "I'm just a little…out of shape."_

_Roger had to laugh. The kid was more than a little out of shape; he was perfectly thin, but clearly he hadn't done any sort of physical activity in about forever. "What are you running from?" He asked, even though it wasn't his place to pry. It was then that he noticed the backpack next to the kid that seemed filled to the brim. "You're running away… Do your parents know?" It was a dumb question, but he was only 20. It wasn't like he was mature or experienced in the adult role._

_The boys answer surprised him. "My mom does. She's, uh, gonna send me money, whenever I get…wherever it is that I end up. So I can finish school and stuff."_

_For a moment Roger thought, wondering why a mother would encourage her son to run away. "How old are you kid?"_

"_Fifteen." Another answer that surprised him._

_The next question was an impulse. "How would you like to come to New York with me? There's room for one more in my apartment."_

_Roger could tell the boy's answer was also an impulse. "Uh…sure."_

"_Come on, my car's right here." Roger watched as the kid stood. "I'm Roger Davis."_

"_Mark Cohen."_

Roger was brought out of the flashback by Collins entering the room carrying a bag that seemed filled in one hand and Roger's guitar case in the other. "How is he?" He asked quietly, as though he didn't want to disturb his friends.

"The doctor said that he'll be fine. We just have to wait." Roger watched as the man nodded, placing his guitar case on the floor by the bed, and handed the bag over to Roger. He started unpacking the bag; he put Mark's spare glasses on the bedside table, and a brown object was stuffed under Mark's pillow. "Why'd you bring my guitar?" The rest of the bag was clothes. Collins must of figured they'd need them.

Tom shrugged. "I wasn't sure how long we'd be here. I thought that you would want something to do."

"I do but…" Roger thought better about continuing, knowing how much it was for Collins to even step into the same hospital that Angel had died in. "Thanks."

They were silent for a while. Neither were positive how long for. Collins was who broke it. "This is weird seeing him there. Looking like he's dead. But he's not." He added quickly at Roger's face. "I always thought that the next time we'd be here would be for someone else with…someone else like us."

Roger nodded. "I know."

Later, Roger sat alone in Mark's room, still waiting for him to wake up. Collins, Maureen, and Joanne had all been there in the day, waiting with him, but by the time midnight had struck they had all gone home to sleep. They had all tried to convince Roger to go home with somebody, but he couldn't be torn from Mark's bedside. He had to be there when Mark woke up.

With a sigh, he reached for Mark's camera. "How the hell does he do this again?" He muttered as he winded the camera, just as Mark did. Years of watching him finally paid off. "December 26th…" He squinted at the clock to read it in the dimly lit room. "2:30 AM." He almost stopped, but then he remembered. "Eastern standard time."

He placed the camera back on the bedside table where it was focused on Mark, who never got filmed. It was only fair. Then he went and got the guitar that he hadn't touched yet, and started playing. It was all random notes, but by the time he had gotten back to his seat he had started talking without realizing it.

"Mark, I know that you probably can't hear me, but I thought you should know that I'm here for you. And that Collins, and Joanne, and Maureen, they were all here too. But I just couldn't leave. I have to be here for you. I have to be here for you, like you were always there for me. You were always there for me when I was drunk, or high, or suicidal, or going through withdrawal, or whatever. And I know that I can never make it up to you, but I'm going to be here for you no matter what. Because that's what family does right? And I know, we're not really family, but I know that I'm closer to you than your mother, or your bastard of a father, or anyone else. So I'm here for you. And I'm gonna be here for you until I… I'll always be here for you."

As his fingers started to go through the motions of playing the guitar, with the random notes, and broken times where Roger adjusted the tuning, the notes finally morphed into his old standby, Musetta's Waltz. He played it more than once every day, and every day Mark would complain how sick he was of it. He was finishing a strain of the song when he heard a familiar voice groan.

"Oh great. I'm in hell."

There's chapter three. A lot sooner than I thought. So you'll probably get at least chapter three before I have to go back to school.


	4. Roosevelt

Disclaimer: Rent is fabulous; however, I don't own it.

Author's Notes: I'm on a big writing streak because of the movie and the sudden inspiration that comes with my parents finally agreeing to buy me the original soundtrack before Christmas. And it should be here by the end of the week which means next weekend will have a lot of updates as well.

Thanks for the reviews, and I'm glad that you all thought that the last line was so good. I'll try to keep stuff as good.

_Italics_ are still flashbacks.

Chapter Three

"What?" Roger's guitar playing stopped abruptly. He looked to Mark, who was starting to stir, his eyelids fluttering.

"I always knew that if I went to hell that Musetta's Waltz would be playing." Mark continued his muttering as the left eye opened. Roger watched as he tried to move his slinged arm, and then hissed in pain. "I just thought when you died you weren't supposed to feel any pain."

Roger reached out to put a hand on Mark's uninjured one. "Mark you're in the hospital."

"Hell has a hospital?" It was clear Mark was still out of it, as he started to turn his head very slowly.

"Mark, it's me Roger. Me and Collins found you outside." Roger grabbed Mark's spare glasses and gingerly placed them on Mark's face, careful to avoid the bruises. The swollen shut right eye was nearly touching the lens.

A smile formed on Mark's face. "Hey Rog." The smile quickly faded as he began coughing. In a hurried manner Roger reached for the cup of water he had used earlier and helped Mark take a sip. "Shit that hurts."

"Yeah, you're beat up pretty bad." For Roger there was no point in hiding the truth, he figured Mark would call him on it anyway. But for a moment, he couldn't think of anything else to say. It was weird for him to be talking to Mark while he was in a hospital bed; it was weird for him to see weakness in Mark, but here he was seeing it. "You've been out for a couple days. Had us worried there."

Mark glanced to the clock, and noticed the change in his vision, as well as the late time. "These are my old glasses." He pointed out as though Roger wouldn't know. The old prescription was annoying him already, but he had always kept them around just in case. "My other ones broke?"

"Beyond all recognition." Roger had to laugh a little at the look on his friend's face. The one that said he hated the old glasses.

"What the hell is under my pillow?" Mark could feel the lumpy object underneath his head.

Roger reached back, and pulled the object out.

It was a small old teddy bear. It had soft, brown fur that had been tugged, snuggled, and exposed to all sorts of childhood adventures. Around his neck was a red bow. Well, it used to be red. It was made of a silk material that with age had changed into a rust color. The bear had some stitches to keep the stuffing from falling out, including some all around his neck from when its head had been ripped off. The bear should have been in the garbage years ago. But when the bear was in Mark's line of vision his eyes lit up, and then he looked over, confused. "You brought Roosevelt?"

_Roger had gotten back to the apartment from his late night visit to the Cat Scratch Club, only to hear muffled groan as he passed by Mark's room. For a moment he didn't think anything of it. He was just a little bit drunk and it might have been a figment of his imagination. But then he heard it again followed by a shouted, "Leave me alone!"_

_It had been two years since the encounter at the gas station, and Roger still knew little about what Mark's past was all about. But he knew that Mark was responsible, more responsible than he'd ever be. Roger knew that if he had been on his own when he was fifteen he would have gotten into so much trouble, but Mark…Mark took every penny of money that his mom sent him, and he put his part of the rent forward, followed by his part of the grocery money, and then he put the rest of the way in a savings account…where it stayed, and was only spent for school supplies and film for his ancient camera that he always had. It wasn't spent frivolously like Roger knew he would have done. _

_Mark was quiet, but he was still one of Roger's best friends, even being his junior by five years. He was always helping Roger out, and drunk as he was, Roger couldn't ignore that his friend was calling out for help. So he opened the door without bothering to knock._

_He was lying on his bed, although lying wasn't the proper word. More like tossing, turning and twisting the sheets on his bed. Mark was clearly having a nightmare. "Mark, wake up." This was a lame attempt to get him up, but Roger couldn't think of anything else. He never claimed that he was good at helping people. "Mark!" This was shouted louder and caused the shy filmmaker to tumble out of his bed. It was that, that snapped him awake. _

_He looked around for a moment, breathing heavily, with a sheen of sweat across his face. "What's going on?" He asked as his eyes settled on Roger._

"_You were having a nightmare man. I wouldn't have got you up, but you were starting to shout. I was planning on going into my room and crashing and I didn't want you to wake me up." Roger tried to be as impersonal as possible. He'd been in this situation before, because his roommates always made him get the boy up. _

_Mark wasn't someone that would talk about his problems, but he would always get other people to talk about theirs. It was how things worked. "Thanks." He muttered, getting back into his bed._

"_You wanna talk about it?"_

"_No."_

"_Didn't think so." Roger started to close the door. "Night."_

_Mark's next words were muffled. Roger stopped closing the door when there was a small crack left and he watched as Mark reached between his mattress and the wall, pulling out a stuffed bear. "Hey Roosevelt." The teenager greeted. "I had the dream again. The same one I've had since I ran away…"_

Roger laughed a little. "You didn't think I knew about him did you?" Mark didn't answer, just tucked the bear underneath the blanket so it was somewhere next to him. "Chill man. I've known since you were seventeen. It's cool."

Mark rolled his eye. But he didn't bring Roosevelt up again. "You said we earlier. Where is everyone?"

"They went home to get some rest."

"But you just couldn't leave your Marky-Man could you?" Mark teased.

Roger was laughing again. It's so weird that things could just fall back into place. Just hours ago Mark was unconscious and everyone was just sort of disbelieving the doctor's diagnosis, thinking that they were going to lose Mark, and now…Now Mark was awake, and already going back into their usual teasing, about how Mark was Roger's Marky-Man, and Roger was Mark's Roger Doger; two nicknames that had come up when Rodger had been very drunk, and come up with Marky-Man. It was the one thing that he had remembered the next morning, and he had chosen to continuously call Mark this name.

Mark just couldn't let this slide, so he had come up with Roger Doger. It annoyed Roger to no end, so they had called a truce, but every time they wanted piss each other off, they would bring them up.

"So what happened?" Roger abruptly changed the subject.

"What does it look like happened?" Mark challenged right back. Roger had to have known how stupid a question that was.

He laughed again. There was something about Mark that always made him laugh, no matter what he was saying. Maybe it was his tone…or the fact that without his hair, he looked like a melon. And with his face all purple it was a bruised melon. And to Roger it was as though nothing coming out of a bruised melons mouth could be taken that seriously. "It looks like you got beat up."

"Well then that's what happened." Mark leaned his head back onto his pillow.

"You wanna talk about it?"

"No."

"Didn't think so."

Those three sentences were a habit. Whenever Mark had a problem, Roger could ask, Mark wouldn't talk, and then Roger would blow it off. Nobody could say he hadn't tried. Those three sentences were why Mark could tell anyone, just about anything about Roger, and most of what Roger could say about Mark was that he was a quiet filmmaker, who helped others and avoided talking to his mother like the plague. Because whenever Mark asked the question, Roger would be unable not to talk.

"Fuck my head hurts." Mark leaned back up.

He laughed again. Such coarse language from a bruised melon. Who wouldn't laugh at that. "Shit happens."

That was when Mark really noticed the clock. "Hey have you taken your AZT?"

"Yes Mom." Roger mocked. But then there was a paralyzing realization that when he had found Mark, lying on the ground, bleeding and hurt, he had touched him. He could have touched one of the cuts. And if there was just one tiny cut on his hands…

He could have just infected Mark. The panic was inset in his mind. By trying to save his friends life, he could have inadvertently given him a death sentence. Just the thought made it hard to look down for a moment. Mark was his friend, Mark was his roommate, Mark was his little brother, Mark was the one out of all of them that was going to survive.

Even though his hands had started shaking the second the thought had come into his head, he looked down. Spreading his fingers, he examined everything so carefully, and only exhaled the sigh of relief when he realized that the only thing on his hands were fading scars.

When he looked back up Mark was giving him a look. "What the hell are you doing?" It always came down to the fact that Roger was doing something that concerned Mark. And Mark would start with getting him to say what he was doing and then he would get him to talk.

"N-nothing." Not this time. He may have stuttered when he gave the answer, but he wasn't going to worry Mark over this. "I'm going to go get the doctor. He'll want to look you over."

"I hate doctors." Mark complained as Roger stood.

Now he could laugh again. "You would have loved the nurse that came in today and gave you a sponge bath. She was cute. I almost got her number for you."

"You're always teasing my like that…" Mark trailed off as Roger was almost out of the room. "Roger Doger."

There you go.


	5. Benny

Disclaimer: Rent is fabulous, however, I don't own it.

Author's Notes: Just posting this one with three, so no notes.

_Italics….you should know this by now. Flashbacks._

Chapter Four

"Oh my god…what happened to my hair?"

"December 27th, 12:30 PM Eastern Standard Time. Mark has just been allowed to get out of bed for the first time, and of course he chooses to go to a mirror." Collins was in charge of Mark's camera while he had gone into the bathroom to perform his usual bathing rituals.

_Mark walked out of the tiny hospital bathroom, a look of shock on his face. "What happened to my hair?" He repeated looking at the four friends who were placed various places around the room._

_Collins snickered a little, putting the camera down. "It looks to me like it's gone."_

_Mark sent him a look, and Joanne took over the explanation in her normal rational manner. "The doctor had to shave it off so he could properly clean and bandage your head injury." _

"_Don't look so depressed Marky…" Maureen almost sounded sympathetic with him, and for once, Mark ignored how much he hated it when she called him that. "It's not like your hair was your best feature or anything."_

_Now Joanne sent her partner a look, even though she was laughing a little. _

_Mark sighed, even blushed a little at the simple teasing notion. He hated being so fair skinned. He always blushed so easily. Not that at the moment anyone could notice. "Are you saying that you'd like it if your hair was suddenly gone? I look like a….a…"_

"_Melon." Roger filled the blank in quite easily. "Without hair you look like a melon."_

"_Don't listen to them Mark." Collins grinned a little. "I'm sure Angel won't mind if you borrow one of her wigs for a little while until it grows back." He grabbed the camera once more. "Zoom in on Mark…who for once will be the subject of his films until he can actually hold a camera again. Mark tell the folks at home how you feel."_

_Mark's only response was using his good hand to flip off the camera. _

_And everyone laughed. Yet again things were normal. This was attack was just a minor setback._

That was two days ago. And now they were on their way home. Mark had been released from the hospital, and now Roger and Collins were escorting Mark into the apartment. Even though he was healthy enough to be out, his lung capacity wasn't up to the standard he was used to, and the stairs had been quite the long journey.

He was still wearing Roger's coat. The coat that had a couple small bloodstains on it. His blood. And he couldn't even put his left arm through the sleeve. So he had tried to convince Roger to take it back but no matter what Roger wouldn't take it. So the entire way home Mark had wasted a jacket. At least in his opinion, but that was OK for the others.

Roger opened the door, and they all entered the loft, and surprisingly, it was warm. He hadn't known about this, considering it was his first time in the apartment in about three days. "Collins, was the heat working when you came over here?" He tossed the bag of stuff onto their defeated looking couch.

"Don't think so." Collins removed his coat, tossing it with the bag.

"Somebody better find Benny and tell him that somebody flipped the switch then." Roger smirked. "Because it totally ruins his plans of freezing us out of this place."

Mark rolled the eyes where the swelling had started to go down. "Will you just appreciate it? It probably won't last long anyways."

They were all settling around the apartment, in a silent fashion. Well, almost silent.

"Speak!" The familiar answering machine voice suddenly picked up.

"Mark, Mark, I know you're there!" Mark groaned at the nasally high-pitched voice. "Mark it's your mother." She waited and sighed. "Fine. Mark, we're worried. We heard there were some muggings in your neighborhood."

Collins snorted. "When haven't there been?"

"Anyway, Cindy told me about them. And we're very concerned." She repeated. "Will you stop screening your calls?"

"No." Mark spoke as though she could hear him.

"We're very worried because we never hear from you."

Mark mocked her singsong voice. "That's because I hate you."

But there was no more message, because as Mark had mocked, Roger had gone to the phone. "Sorry about the delay in answering Mrs. Cohen, we just got back in."

It was strange to hear the words come out of Roger's mouth. But both men knew what the rocker was doing. Mark started frantically motioning with his hand; Collins started laughing. "Of course, he's right here." Roger walked over and handed Mark the phone.

Mark covered the receiver with his hand. "What are you doing?" He hissed sort of angrily.

And there was that Roger grin again. "If you talk to her now, then she'll leave you alone for at least a couple of hours."

With a dejected sigh Mark put the phone to his ear. "Hi mom…yes I'm fine…you and Dick are coming to visit?" Just at this thought both people in the room could hear every ounce of worry in his voice. "Yes, I know his name is Richard…I told you I'm fine…."

It was two hours later that Mark was asleep on the couch. He had talked for only fifteen minutes to his mother but that time seemed to have exhausted him, because when he hung up he had fallen asleep. For a while Roger and Collins had left him there doing her own thing, but then they watched as he flopped down. His lower torso was still in the same position but his upper was now strewn across the couch.

"Let's put him in his room." Collins sighed standing up.

"Why?"

Tom looked at the position that the boy was in, with his mouth slightly open, a pool of drool about to form. " 'Cause that can not be comfortable."

Roger shook his head. "His mattress is a piece of shit. I should know it used to be mine."

"Well it's better then this couch."

This sort of convinced Roger to get up. "Fine. I'll get him you get the door."

"There's no one at the…" A knock at the door cut Collins off. "How'd you do that?"

"It's a gift." Roger shrugged, as Collins turned to the door. With a bit of a sigh, he bent over and gingerly picked his friend up. "Shit Cohen, you really have lost weight."

He carried a feather light Mark into his room. Mark's room was cleaner than the rest of the loft, but it most certainly wasn't clean. With another sigh he let go of him with one hand and pulled back the covers. Then he set Mark down, and he pulled the threadbare sheets over his friend, tucking them in around his body, before removing his glasses and placing them on the bedside table.

Standing back, he looked down for a minute. Something was missing. Roger got it soon after, and exited the room in a relaxed manner. His footsteps echoed in the silence of the apartment. And then he got into the living room area and froze. "Benny."

"Hey Roger." Benny lifted his hand in a sort of wave greeting. "How is he?"

There was no question of who the he was. "He's sleeping." Roger tucked his hands into the back pockets of his jeans. "What are you doing here Benny?"

"I thought I should come see how Mark was."

"He's fine." Despite how quiet and awkward the conversation was, this was Roger and Benny at their civilest. They both knew it was because Roger didn't want to wake up Mark. "How did you know he was hurt?"

"Collins told me." Benny shrugged. "I thought you should know that I took care of his bill."

"Why, so you can hold something else over us?" Roger's statement was bitter, not that he didn't have a reason.

"Because he's my friend too!" Benny nearly interrupted harshly. After a deep breath he calmed down. "Tom also told me what Mark was doing…"

"And what's that?"

"How he was starving himself to make sure that you got your meds, and were eating and that the rent was paid." Benny sighed. "And I plan to remedy this."

"How, more charity?" Roger wanted to die, when he realized that what Benny was saying was true. He had been ignoring it, but Mark was ignoring his own health for Roger's. But instead of his depressed tone, he went with the defensive angry one.

Benny didn't say anything for a moment. "I'm changing the rules of the building. There's not going to be any rent and utilities will always be free for anyone that needs it, as long as they're clean." For a moment nobody spoke. "It's not just for you. I've been thinking about it for a while…ever since…for a while. But with this thing with Mark, I've decided to make it official. Here's the money you gave me for this month." He handed it over to Roger.

"Umm…thanks."

"I'll go now."

Benny left without another word and Collins looked over to Roger as though reading his mind. "Want me to take it and go shopping?"

"If you want."

"It's Tom's pleasure."

Collins bowed gracefully out of the apartment, and not a moment later, Mark showed up.

"Who was that?"

"Benny. I thought you were sleeping." Roger turned around.

"I was." Mark walked somewhat gingerly to the couch. "Who put those blankets on me? It was like hospital corners."

"I did." Roger paused. "Why'd you wake up?"

"Dunno." Mark shrugged.

Roger knew. "I forgot to bring him in with you." He reached into the bag, and brought out Roosevelt, handing him to Mark. Then he was his usual self, and shoved the junk off the coffee table to lay on it. "So I heard that your mom and stepfather were coming up for a visit."

"Yeah. It ought to be a real fucking party."

"When's the date?"

"Two weeks."

"You OK?"

"No."

"You wanna talk about it?"

"No."

There you go. I'll have much more next weekend. Including the soundtrack!

By the way, I realize that Mark probably doesn't have a stepfather, but he needs to for my plan…so too bad.


	6. Signs

Disclaimer: I don't own it.

Author's notes: And here is more. Thank you so much for all of the reviews. A warning that this is the chapter where the material gets darker.

_Italics are flashbacks._

Chapter Five

It was two weeks later that Mark was going about his life as though the attack had never happened. He had gotten new glasses, and his hair was growing back in a sort of fuzz, but it was the same Mark. He filmed, consulted on other people's problems, and avoided talking himself like the plague. His camera was good for that…even if it did mean that Roger was right.

Now he was on his way to meet his mother and stepfather at the train station. And on the way he was hoping he'd find something tall to jump off of.

"_You gonna tell me why you're running away man?" _

_Mark glanced around the car. He couldn't believe he was doing this. Not running away. He had planned on running away, but he had planned on running to the bus station the second he had really gotten away. He hadn't planned on getting into a car with a total stranger. He hadn't really heard the man… Roger's question._

"_Hey man, you listening?" Roger asked._

_Mark started and then looked over. "Sorry." His voice practically squeaked, and he hung his head as his cheeks flushed. _

"_It's cool man." Roger shrugged. "So…what are you running away from?"_

"_My stepfather." It came out before Mark could stop it. He never talked about himself. Normally he had a better defense mechanism, that screened his thoughts before they came out of his mouth, but in his nervousness it had stopped working."_

_Roger didn't say anything for a brief moment. "Does he hit you?"_

"_I uh…don't want to talk about it." Mark turned away._

"_That's cool man." For a minute Roger seemed to focus on the road. It seemed that he had accepted Mark's end to the conversation. But then he turned back. "'Cause if he hit you then I'm sorry. You look like a good kid."_

"_Thanks." Mark sighed, wishing that it had just been hitting. He could have handled hitting. At least he thought he could._

"Oh Marky I haven't seen you in forever!"

Mark grunted as his mother pulled him into a hug without warning. It didn't really hurt him, because his ribs were healed and the bruises were gone, but despite her appearance his mother could be quite forceful. "Mom, don't call me Marky." He muttered.

"Now Mark, really. I'm going to call you what I want. I'm your mother." Patricia was a tiny woman with graying red hair. "And what have you done with your hair?"

"Nothing Mom."

"Bull." The man behind Patricia mumbled. "Makes you look like a girl." He said the last bit as he stepped forward next to her. Mark felt himself get a little nervous as it happened. He was the opposite of Patricia. Tall, muscular, and bald with a gravelly voice.

"Oh Richard really." Patricia put her hand on his arm.

"It's fine mom." Mark glanced around the train station. He knew that he had walked there mechanically, without thinking about it. He knew that he would continue just going through the motions for the day. He sighed. "Come on, I'll give you a tour of the city."

Eight hours later and they were eating dinner at some diner that Mark's mother had seen. They had done every touristy thing that Mark had avoided ever since he had gotten to the city ten years ago. The entire time he had done his best to make it seem as though his life was good. Saying things like Roger was sick, so they couldn't see the loft. The entire time he had done his best to ignore everything that Richard had said or done. This dinner was the first break of the day…Richard was in the bathroom.

"Mark, thank you for giving this a chance." Patricia smiled over her tea. "I know that Richard isn't your favorite person, but I do think that he's changed, you know."

Mark shook his head. "If you say so mom."

"Oh Mark." Patricia put her hand on his. "I promise that he has. He's been going to synagogue and everything. He's been a changed man ever since…never mind. He's not how he was."

Mark wanted to roll his eyes. "It's easy for you to say that mom. He would never do anything to you."

"Marky Boy!" It was Richard from the men's room door. "Come here for a sec. I wanna talk to you."

Mark hesitated. This was the part that he had been dreading. But Patricia gave him a look, so very slowly, stood and entered the men's room. "What do you want Dick?" He knew Richard hated when people called him that. That it pissed his stepfather off. So he didn't know why he was provoking him. His only relief was that he had waited until they were behind closed doors.

"I just missed my Marky Boy." Richard almost snarled, doing an action that he hadn't done in a long time. "It's been ten years since I've seen you."

"Please…don't." The tears that Mark wouldn't let fall stung at his eyes and gathered in the back of his throat, making his voice even weaker than when he was begging for his life. And when he heard Richard laugh, he knew that the pleas were pointless, so he closed his eyes to wait for the encounter to be over.

By the time that Mark truly opened his eyes again he was entering the loft. He vaguely remembered saying goodbye to his mom and walking home, but not really. "Hey man how did it---." But Mark blew right past Roger and into the bathroom. This was where he threw up. When he came back out Roger tried again. "Mark man, you OK?"

Mark opened the door. "Peachy. Just fucking peachy."

This was Roger's first real sign that something was wrong. Really wrong. He watched Mark as he took out the bottle of cheap generic whisky that they had, about a sixth of the bottle left, opened it, and gulped the whole thing down. This was Roger's second sign. But after he had the drink it seemed like his face had transformed back to calm, normal, Mark. "You know if you're sick it's probably not the best idea for you to be drinking."

"I'm fine." Mark glanced around before turning around and going back to the fridge as though he was trying to hide himself.

"Whatever." Now he watched as he pulled out the day old container of Chinese takeout, and searched for a plate. "That had better be for you man."

Mark shook his head. "It's for you. And take your AZT with it."

This set Roger off. "Damn it Mark, can't you ever just think about yourself for once!" He hadn't said anything in the two weeks since Mark had returned from the hospital about him eating. He had thought that with the alleviation from Benny things might be better, but they weren't.

"What?" Mark stopped dishing out the fried rice.

"Think about yourself for fuck's sake! You just came back from a day with two people that you hate, and you throw up, and all you do is remind me to take meds! In the ten years I've known you, I have never seen you put yourself first. And I know that you don't eat to make sure that I do. I also know that you nearly fucking died because of it. "Roger ran a hand through his hair. "I mean shit Mark. You never talk to anyone about your problems. I still don't know why the hell you ran away from Scarsdale when you were fifteen! I'm your best fucking friend, and I know nothing about you!" The punch to Roger's face was sign number three.

"Fuck off will you?" Mark started backing away. "Just fuck off Roger!"

Roger cut him off as he tried to get into his room. "Not until you tell what the hell is wrong with you!"

"Why! Why the hell do you care now? You haven't cared for ten fucking years, why decide that now's the time?"

"You never wanted to talk about it!"

"Well I don't want to talk about it now!"

Roger took a deep breath trying to calm down. Losing his temper wasn't going to get him anywhere, but the thought of this surprised him, because he had never cared before. "Mark I'm just trying to be a friend. I want to help you like you've always helped me."

"I've always helped you because I know that you can't take care of yourself!" Mark shot right back. "Just watch my movie."

"There you go again hiding behind that fucking camera!"

"Well if you didn't notice, I've always been a hell of a lot happier than you."

"You use that camera as a shield. Because you can't deal with the real world."

"Maybe. What the fuck does it matter?"

"Mark, I just want t help. Tell me what's wrong. Tell me the truth." It was the first time Roger had heard such a pleading tone in his own voice. Not even when he had tried to get Mimi off the drugs.

Then Mark gave Roger sign four and it scared him. He glared at him with stone hard eyes. "Nothing's wrong. That's the truth. And if you're wondering about me, maybe all these years after I said I didn't want to talk about it you should have just tried again. I've never been the most steadfast person. Now get out of my way."

They didn't speak the rest of the night. The next morning Roger was at the kitchen table when Mark came out of his room. "Listen Mark. About last night…"

"I'm going to a doctor's appointment." Mark cut off his room mate. His tone all business. "Eat something and take your AZT." He showed no signs of wanting to work things out like after every other fight they'd had. This was sign number five.

There's this one. Next one will be up very soon. Quick poll: I'm not even close to this point, but at the ending, do you want to see a sad ending, or a happy ending? Please vote in a review.


	7. Angel Interlude

Disclaimer: Don't own it.

Author's notes: Here's the next one. It's really only an interlude to show some stuff that Mark and Roger are thinking. I know that they seem kind of OOC, but I was kind of drawing from them, and what the situation would feel like and combining them.

Thanks for the reviews.

_Italics are flashbacks._

Interlude One

Roger brushed away the snow on the ground a little before kneeling down in front of Angel's tombstone. It was the three month check in with Angel. The entire group had come. One at a time they would each go up and talk to Angel. A lot of the time Roger blew these things off. It didn't really make sense to him to talk to some one that was dead. But this time he had to come. "Hey Angel." He waited a minute as though she was responding. It was easier that way…to pretend that she was there. "I know that I don't always come to talk to you like the other's do, but I know that you can understand that. You were the most understanding person I know."

He paused again. "Angel, I don't know what to do. I know that Collins has told you that Mark got attacked. Since then we've had a fight. A big one. And I've realized that he was right….but every time that I try to apologize, he ignores me. The only time he talks to me is to remind me to take my meds. He doesn't talk to anyone and I don't know why. He's pushing us all away, and it scares me."

"_Guys I think that we have a problem." Roger had gathered them at the Life Café a week after his fight with Mark. Maureen, Joanne, and Collins. "It's Mark." He had thought for a moment that they would be confused and wouldn't believe him. But Joanne was quick to agree._

"_You mean Mr. Fuck Off?" She scoffed. The language was different for Joanne, the big hint that she really knew what was going on._

_Roger winced. "That would be the one."_

_Then again, they didn't all get it. "So he's been a little pissy for a week." Maureen shrugged. "Me and Joanne get like his once a month and you're never this concerned."_

"_He hasn't said a word to me or Roger for a week. Just tells us to take our AZT." Collins had experienced the wrath of Mark first hand when trying to get him to talk. It hadn't been pretty. "Ever since his mom and step dad came to visit."_

_Joanne frowned. "Why is that bad?"_

_Roger hung his head. "I don't know. I mean I know it was a bad day for him. I know that his mom helped him run away because of something that his stepfather did, and I know that he hates her because she wouldn't leave him. But I don' know what his stepfather did."_

_Collins put a hand out. "We'll all work on him. And if that doesn't work we'll figure something else out."_

"_Yeah sure."_

"Angel, you know that I don't scare easily. But Mark is scaring me. He's just not himself. I want to be able to just have things go back to normal.

"And I know what you'd say. You'd say that you have to just let things run their course, and that he'll come around on his own, because he may be a scrawny little filmmaker, but he can be a tough scrawny little filmmaker if he really wants to be, and for once he needs to just do things his way. And I know that you're right. But it makes me feel helpless." After a long intake of breath he spoke again. "Thanks for listening Angel, I'll be back soon."

Two people later and it was Mark's turn. Normally Mark loved the trips to Angel, but today he hadn't wanted to come. Today they had forced him to leave the lot. Maureen, Joanne, Collins, and Roger. They were all standing a couple of rows of tombstones away, where they always stood, and they were watching him. He knew they were hoping for him to let it all out with Angel, and then maybe he'd be OK.

"Well, hey Angel." It was the most awkward greeting he had ever given her, because today he didn't want to talk. He wanted to just forget. "I don't know what to say, because I haven't sorted things out myself. Angel, you're the only one that I ever told about my step father."

"_Honey, how'd you meet Roger?" Angel was smiling as she curled on the couch, taking a cup of tea from Mark gratefully. _

_It was just after New Years. Roger was somewhere with Mimi, and Collins was teaching, so they had chosen to hangout together. "It was when I was fifteen." Mark sighed, looking at his own tea for a moment, sitting next to her. "I was running away from home, and he brought me here."_

_Angel took a sip of her tea. "And you never left when you finished school?"_

"_I tried to…but that didn't work out." Again he was looking at his cup of tea. "And when I came back Roger needed me. So no, I never really left."_

"_Why'd you run away?" For some reason the question coming from Angel sounded so much easier to answer than it had when Roger had asked it. _

_It still flustered him though. "I…well…uh…"_

"_It's OK if you don't want to tell me hon." Angel put a sympathetic hand on his. _

"_No. It's just…I ran because of my stepfather." It sort of just came out with Angel, and then he looked at his tea again._

_She didn't say anything for a moment, just looked into blue eyes that seemed almost lost. "He didn't treat you right did he Hon?"_

_Just looking at her he knew that she knew exactly what had happened. Even without his explanation. "Yeah."_

"_It gets better if you talk about it. I'm here if you need it."_

"Well he came up to visit two weeks ago, so I guess that kind of explains things to you anyways."

Mark stood, sticking his hands in his pockets, feeling the crumpled paper, and the cold plastic; feeling the new part of his life. "I'm sorry Angel. That was probably the worst talk we've had." So he turned and left. Not just Angel's grave, but the graveyard, without a word to anybody. Tears were gathering in his eyes again, like they had for over four weeks. But he wouldn't let them fall as he found his way into the bar across the street. Tears were not allowed to fall.

There's the interlude.


	8. Happy

Disclaimer: I don't own RENT. I also don't own any of the songs that are mentioned in this chapter.

Author's notes: This is the humorous chapter of this series of updates, it has very little plot. As in it doesn't have any. But next chapter will be a big plot development, so I'm not going to apologize. It's OOC, but I think I explained everything behind that in the last chapter. Thanks for the reviews.

Chapter Six

Collins was reading a very old newspaper in the loft. It had somehow escaped being burnt for heat over the years. It was late, and he was tired, but he stayed up, waiting for at least one of the permanent residents of the loft to get home safely. They had watched earlier as Mark had entered a seedy looking bar, just minutes after talking to Angel. This was concern enough for everyone. Roger had gone out a few hours later to find him, claiming that he wasn't about to let Mark lose himself like that.

So Collins was holding down the loft, because he had a feeling that the night would not end well; that the two would fight and at least one of them would end up in jail. This however was not the case.

The door was opening, and in came Roger, supporting a stumbling Mark. This was a reverse of what Collins normally saw. "A little help?" Roger asked quietly.

"I get by with a little help from my friends." Mark sang out off key. There was nothing quiet about his tone, as he started to stumble into a sorry excuse for a coffee table. "I get high with a little help from my friends."

Roger caught him quickly, and started leading him to the couch. "Hate to break it to you Mark, but you're not high."

Collins laughed as Roger forced Mark onto the couch. "Is he…"

"Completely and utterly hammered?" Roger suggested, quickly leaning up. "Yeah. I found him at Lola's."

This got Mark started again. "Her name was Lola…she was a showgirl!"

"And has he been doing that all night?"

"Uh-huh." Roger nodded, taking a seat next to Collins. "He keeps pulling random songs out of his ass. He has some interesting tastes in music."

"Woah-oh-woah! Listen to the music!" The crooning continued.

"He makes a very happy drunk." Collins observed quietly. "This is the most I've heard his voice in two weeks."

"Yeah, well, let's hope it lasts." Roger sighed, running a hand through his hair. "He's forgotten how much he hates me."

Collins looked for a moment to where Mark was in his own world dancing on the couch, and an idea came to his head. It's not that he would possibly want to take advantage of his friend, but this was a good opportunity. "Think we can get anything out of him about what happened?"

Mark heard this. "And oh, what happened then was rich! The house began to pitch, the kitchen took a … oh shit I can't remember the words." He giggled and started standing. "Roger!" He called out stumbling over.

"Oh son of a bitch." Roger muttered.

"Roger I can't remember the words." Mark sort of whined, grabbing onto his friend's shirt.

"Then I guess you'll have to sing something else." Roger pried Mark's hand off his shirt.

"But I wanna sing that one." At the end of his sentence Mark yawned.

Collins grinned. "Looks like it's time for somebody to get some sleep."

"Sleep in heavenly peace!" Mark got over his need to sing that particular song. "Sleep in heavenly peace!"

"Oh for heavenly peace." Roger's head went down to the table.

"I'll get him into bed." Collins volunteered, and he stood. "Come on Mark." He grabbed onto Mark's elbow.

"Come on people now, smile on your brother. Everybody get together, try to love one another right now."

"Yeah that's it Mark." Collins muttered. "Let's just get you to your room." Mark was stuck on this song until they got into the room. It was the messiest that Collins had ever seen it. Film canisters were scattered everywhere, clothes were put all over the floor. This was unlike Mark, he knew. It wasn't that Mark was an overly neat person, but normally there was a semblance of cleanliness. "OK, Mark, into bed."

"You." Mark pointed, tripping over a pile of clothes. "You are always trying to get into bed with me."

At this point Collins had a hard time keeping a straight face. "Another time another place Marky. Now get into bed."

Mark flopped onto the bed. "Collins, you've always been a great friend to me."

"I know." He started pulling the blankets up for his friend.

"And when I am elected King of this fine city, you shall be rewarded."

"How so?"

"You shall be allowed to bed me."

Collins finished with the blankets, and he had to laugh. "Mark, the last time I checked, you liked girls."

"And girls, just wanna have fun!" Mark started bouncing again in song. "Girl's just wanna have-…"

"Mark, Mark, Mark." Collins gently restrained him. "Settle down. It's time for bed."

"No. I said you could bed me after I became king." Mark protested quietly. "But sleep sounds good."

"Then go to sleep Mark." Collins readjusted the blankets that Mark had disturbed. "I'll see you in the morning." He started to turn around and put his hand on the light switch.

"Collins?"

"Yeah Mark?" He turned back.

"Could you tell Roger…" Mark paused as though he was thinking about what to say. "And you have to say this exactly as I say it, OK?"

"OK Mark." Collins agreed.

"Did you ever know that you're my hero? You're everything I would like to be. I can fly higher than an eagle. 'Cause you are the wind beneath my …" And then he passed out.

With another laugh and a smile Collins flipped the light switch and exited the room back to the kitchen table. "Man that boy is wasted."

Roger's head lifted up from the table. "I believe the correct term is shit faced. Did I just hear Bette Midler?"

"Oh yeah. Those were his feelings about you." Collins sat down. "But you missed his proposition to me."

"What?" Had Roger been drinking, it would have been spewed across the table.

Collins explained, and for a moment all either could do was laugh. The humor that had been missing for the past two weeks, if only for a night. Neither were about to let it slip through their hands. "I don't think I've ever seen him like this."

"I have. I took him out on his 21st birthday, determined to get him drunk and with his first woman. But I completely underestimated what he'd get like drunk, and he made a complete ass of himself."

"And he felt it in the morning didn't he?"

"Nope."

"What do you mean no? If the boy was half as smashed as he is right now than…"

"Mark doesn't get hangovers." Roger explained. "Lucky bastard."

"You mean to tell me that he can drink like that, and not have a headache or the need to throw up, or anything?"

"He won't remember a thing tomorrow, but yeah."

"Man, the one guy who never gets drunk..." Collins trailed off.

Roger sighed. And they had lost the humor. "Exactly. He never gets drunk. He's trying to forget or something, and you can't just ignore problems you have to deal with them."

Collins did a double take. "Do you have any idea how much like him you sounded, just now?" He stopped the joking at Roger's pointed look to him and didn't say anything for a moment. "You know, the Roger I know would care less about how Mark deals with his issues."

"Look, just because I've never been vocal about it…or whatever…that doesn't mean that I don't…"

"I get it man. And you're right. But you've got to look on the bright side for now."

"And what's that?"

"He was happy tonight."

"He won't remember that in the morning."

"But we will, and we are gonna get a hell of a laugh out of it."

There's this one. Thank you again for the reviews. I'll have the next chapter up soon. Remember, that's the one where we're actually going to develop the plot a little. Scary, I know.

So far, it's five votes for a happy ending, one vote for a sad ending, and one vote for a sad-happy ending. Please vote if you haven't already.


	9. Panic

Disclaimer: I don't own anything. So deal with it.

Author's Notes: Thank you for all of the reviews, I'm glad you all like the story so much.

This is **important. **_Italics are pieces of film in this chapter. Not flashbacks._

The next morning was different to say the least. Roger and Collins were up first, and then Mark got up. Mark was the difference. He was still shuffling and solemn, but for the first time that he would remember, he spoke of something other than medication. "I got drunk last night didn't I?" His hair that was almost back to normal was sticking in all directions. This added to their startled state when they looked up at the sound of his voice. Then neither spoke. "Uh, guys?" He tried again. "Did you hear me?"

"We heard you." Collins confirmed. "We were wondering if you did. It's kind of surprising to hear your voice."

"Oh." And Mark sobered quickly. "Right."

"But yeah. You got pretty drunk last night." Roger informed quietly, not meeting his eyes with the filmmaker's. The hypocrite.

"I figured. Since I don't remember anything." By now Collins and Roger were wondering what had caused the sudden change in their friend's attitude. He had been so mad at them the day before…and suddenly it seemed as though he was neutral. "I'm going to start watching some film stuff out here in a couple minutes." He told them this before walking back to his room. And that was the last of this encounter.

For a moment Collins and Roger could only look at each other. "Did he just talk to us?" Roger asked carefully. He didn't want to jinx this.

"That's what I heard. Maybe we're making progress." Tom suggested just as carefully. "I guess we'll have to wait and see."

So they waited. And it was later that Mark had set his equipment up and was starting to watch his footage. Roger was sitting on the kitchen table with his guitar, simply screwing around with it, while Collins had decided to go out and quote unquote, 'See if there were any minds to corrupt today.' Roger wasn't really paying attention to what was playing on the wall. He was more than satisfied that for one reason or another he and Mark were coexisting happily again. Now he planned to do what he could to keep the peace; this included not really paying attention to Mark's footage because he knew that Mark didn't like people seeing things before they were done. But a voice interrupted this concept.

"_You're Roger's little bitch."_ Roger knew it was his old dealer, but didn't say anything yet. He only started watching. It didn't take long for him to realize that this was the footage from the night that Mark was attacked. The first punch was his main clue.

There was something oddly mesmerizing about this piece of footage. About seeing your best friend get beat up in the past, knowing basically what would happen, but not being able to stop it. Roger couldn't look away.

"_You two finish him off. I have some business to take care of." The dealer turned and left. One of the other's reached into his coat, pulling out a gun, and placing it on Mark's forehead._

Roger hadn't known about this. It scared him a little, to realize how close to death his friend had been that night; it scared him more to realize how close to truth his own thoughts had been. Mark very well could have died.

"Please…Please don't…" Roger tore his eyes away from the wall when he realized that Mark had spoken. Mark, who was sitting on the couch just watching his footage, had said the words with the Mark on the screen. "Please…Please don't…" He repeated the words in a quiet, shaky voice.

Roger frowned and put his guitar down. "Mark?" There was no response. "Mark?" He stood and walked over. Mark was staring straight ahead, a glazed look over his eyes. "Mark?"

He was breathing shallowly and the breaths were accelerating in speed. Faster and faster. Inoutinoutinoutinout. His face was covered in a sheen of sweat, his cheeks were flushing. Inoutinoutintoutinout. "Mark." Roger reached out a hand towards his, but Mark withdrew it away quickly. "Mark…you're scaring me." His hands were shaking violently, a shiver ripped through his body.

Then it hit Roger. It was a panic attack. He had had his share when he went through withdrawal. It wasn't exactly the same thing he knew…but he was hoping that he could remember enough about how to deal with them to help Mark.

"Mark. Focus on me." He grabbed onto Mark's hands despite his friends avoidance. "Mark look at me." Roger positioned himself in front of Mark's eyes. "Mark, just focus on me. I'm here."

Inoutinoutinoutinout. "Please…please don't…" His voice was weaker, more strained against tears in his voice.

"Mark, listen to my voice OK?" Roger did his best to keep his voice calm and soothing. That was what Mark had always done with him. "Mark, I want you to listen to my voice. I need you to breathe with me OK? Listen to me Mark."

No response. Just the breathing. Inoutinoutinoutinout. Just the words. "Please…please don't…"

"Mark breathe with me. Nice slow deep breaths. In…and out. In…and out."

Inoutinoutinoutin and out. In and out.

"That's it Mark. That's good. In…and out. In…and out." The slowing continued. "That's good Mark. Just keep focusing on me. I'm right here."

In and out. In and out. In and… "What's going on?" His voice was still straining against emotions. His cheeks were flushed, the sweat was still there. "Roger what are you doing?" He pulled his hands away. They were still shaking. He was still out of breath.

"You were having a panic attack." Roger left his crouching position going to the crate across from Mark and sitting on it.

For a moment he didn't say anything. He closed his eyes briefly, trying to regroup.

"You scared me." Roger informed.

"I scared me too." Mark tried a lame joke. He was fighting the emotions still. But it would be easier if Roger left him alone. It was easier to fight when he was alone.

Roger watched as the color drained from his friend's face. "Mark, I need you to tell me what's going on with you." He started very quietly, as reserved as he could be.

"I don't want to talk about it." It was the weakest his voice had ever been when he had said those words. This wasn't a good time to be pressed for information…he was too weak. He wouldn't be able to hide it.

"Well, you're going to." He paused. "I know that I was wrong to just assume that because you said you didn't want to talk about it that you were OK. And if you ask me the past few days has been evidence enough that you're not."

"You don't know what you're talking about!" It had only been a couple sentences that had changed Mark's attitude, from quiet and lost to an emotional angry.

Roger did his best not to get mad again. Another fight wasn't what they needed. "You just had a panic attack because you watched a film. And you haven't been yourself for two weeks. You can't tell me that I don't know what I'm talking about because I'm watching you lose yourself."

"He raped me!" Mark shouted quickly, cutting Roger off. "He raped me!" Even as he finished the sentence he collapsed into wracking sobs, falling forward off the couch onto Roger's chest.

"What?" Roger caught the filmmaker easily, but the shock quickly set in. Three little words. He. Raped. Me. And the words were enough to shatter his world. The filmmaker was crying into his chest. He could already feel the tears soak through his shirt. It was one of the few times in his life that he didn't know what to say.

Mark pulled back quickly, wiping his eyes. "Two weeks ago, when he came up to visit."

And Roger realized what it all meant. "Your stepfather." He spoke it quietly. It seemed as though if he spoke louder than a murmur things would go badly. He didn't want that now.

"I spent ten years of my life trying to avoid him." Mark was fighting with the emotions again. "Ten years where I was safe. Ten years down the drain in five minutes. He raped me Roger."

He. Raped. Me. What does somebody say to those words? Roger didn't know. Just moments ago a things seemed so normal, like they would be OK. Now they didn't. "Mark, I…I'm sorry." If it weren't for the situation he would have laughed. He was just doing everything that Mark would have done. Mark would have handled the panic attack, Mark would have said those exact words.

"Don't be." He looked over. "There's no point in being sorry for me. It happened, it's over." Again with the complete personality switch. "I just need to stop crying over it and move on with my life." It was a personality switch, but he was still holding back tears. Roger could tell. It was as though Mark was trying to go numb, and Roger knew that he was.

Roger shook his head. "It's OK for you to be upset about this Mark. That bastard hurt you. It's OK for you to cry about things. Isn't that what you always told me, when you were trying to stop me from killing myself? When I went through the withdrawal?"

"That's different." Mark turned away stubbornly. His hands went into his jacket pocket again. It was too cold in the loft even with heat. The paper felt harsh against his hands, the plastic was smooth.

"Don't be a hypocrite Mark. I'm not going to let you do this to yourself. Just let it out."

"I can't just let it out!" The hand came out of the pocket and the plastic and crumpled paper were thrown across the room. "I have bigger things to worry about than what that asshole did to me."

Roger didn't say anything. He stood, and went to the fallen objects that had rebounded into the corner. One was a crumpled ball of paper and that he couldn't read. The other was a clear orange bottle with the white cap and label. The prescription was made out to Mark Cohen. Now it was his turn for his hands to shake. The bottle dropped to the floor once more and he straightened the paper. Once more it was addressed to Mark Cohen. It was crumpled again when he was done reading it. "Mark…how did you…?"

"I got it from him." He explained as though it would ease my own fears. "When he…when it happened." Now he was looking away again.

Roger still didn't know what to say. He knew that Mark had been going to say it again. He. Raped. Me. And now he could add to that. He. Made. Me. HIV. Positive. That was Mark had just said. His stepfather had gone so far as to rape him, and give him HIV. No wonder Mark hated his family.

There's this one. I should able to get one more knocked out today, but if not then we'll repeat the major updating drill at the same time next weekend.


	10. One Month

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of RENT. The song used in this chapter is by a local duo, David and Lucas.

Author's Notes: Well, here's more. I hope you enjoy it. This particular chapter starts another hint at Mark/Roger goodness. It also shows a bit more vulnerability in Roger. Thank you for all of the reviews.

Stuff inbold **like this**...you'll see what that means.

_Italics are flashbacks._

**"The world my friend, is a lot heavier today, than yesterday.**

**"I always thought there was a better way. So while you were sleeping,**

**"I ran away, I'm running away.**

**"Catch me if you can, oh catch me if you can.**

**"Catch me if you care anymore, catch me by the hand.**

**"Catch me 'cause I'm falling, you know I fell for you.**

**"Catch me if you care anymore, catch me if you want me too."**

**Mark just listened as Roger played his guitar and started singing. Roger didn't know that he was there, standing in the doorway of his room, filming him while he was playing. It was easy to get caught up in listening to Roger. His voice had a quality about it. It wasn't really like a rock god's voice, it was more sensitive than that. "What is that?" Mark found himself asking, announcing his presence without warning.**

**Roger abruptly stopped his playing. "Just something I've sort of been working on." He shrugged, with a bit of a grin on his face. "Nothing special."**

**"I think it sounds pretty good." Mark offered, just as much of a smile on his face. He was still filming when he stepped into the room a bit more. "Why don't you tell our viewers what inspired this lyrical masterpiece?"**

**"You mean you?" Roger teased.**

**Mark gave him a pointed look. "What's the song about Roger?"**

**"I was just thinking about when I went to Santa Fe."**

**Mark's next question was sort of sensitive. He hesitated for a moment. "So it's about Mimi…" He trailed off at the look on Roger's face.**

**"No, not really." Roger shrugged again. His face was darker now, almost surely brought on by the topic. "Actually…it's mostly about you." This admission was a quiet one, and he almost looked away. But that would have been too much like Mark for him.**

**"Me?" Mark's camera arm drifted down to his side. "What do you mean me?"**

**"Just sit and listen to the rest of the song." Roger gestured. "Once you hear it, it's kind of self explanatory." Mark did as told, sitting on the bed next to Roger, and then Roger started playing again.**

**"Remember where, the place we could only find, with bare feet and eyes closed**

**"That's where you'll find me…"**

**Roger was still singing, but Mark suddenly stopped listening. He could see Roger, who had his eyes closed as he played, and he could see that his mouth was still moving. But instead of Roger he heard a different voice. A happy voice, that had a smile in it's tone. "Take a leap of faith, Honey."**

**Mark snapped back to the room. "Roger." He interrupted, quietly.**

**"What?" He stopped playing.**

**And then Mark just leaned over and kissed Roger.**

"Mark!"

Mark rolled over in his twisted sheets, groaning at the sudden noise. It had been one month since everything had come out with Roger. One month of getting used to the fact that he was going to die. One month of getting over the trauma of his stepfather. He was close, but not there yet. Only Collins and Roger knew of either of these facts… the others just knew that there had been a turnaround with him, and that something was still a little off with their friend. They were accepting it all in any case.

One month of his new job at the dilapidated, small theater just outside of Alphabet City. It only had one showing room, but the owner was in desperate need of someone that knew how to run the projector. The movies were only half decent, bordering on bad most of the time, and theater rarely got even half filled. But despite this the pay was actually decent. It would cover both of the bohemian's medication, with leftover cash for everything else. The other plus of this job was that his boss was a motherly woman, who genuinely cared, and let him use the theater's equipment to work on his own things. It was probably the best job that he could have hoped to find.

One month of everyone else, being basically the same. Benny had kept his word, and Rent was still not being charged. Maureen and Joanne were fighting every other week, but always managing to reconcile. Collins was in and out of their lives, but instead of showing up every few months, it was every few days. Everything had caused him to be more concerned for his friends, and he was once more growing closer to them. And Roger was starting really finish songs. They were all somewhat depressing and moody, but that was Roger for you.

"Mark!"

The infuriating voice tried again. Mark lazily opened one eye and read the cartoon faced alarm clock by his bed. It was nine. In the morning. On a Saturday. And Roger was trying to make him get up. He sighed. If Roger was awake it must have been important. "What?" He didn't reach for his glasses.

"There's something furry on my face!" Roger called back in a voice that was almost whiny and childlike.

Mark rolled back over, shoving his face into his pillow. "If it's a mouse it's your turn to get rid of it." He wished that he hadn't woken up. The was starting to enter his mind. With little reluctance he pushed towards the back of his mind. He had dreams like that once in awhile, and every time that he woke up from one it would just be pushed to the back of his mind and forgotten.

"It's bigger than a mouse." Roger tried again. "And it's licking my hair."

Mark rolled over again and reached blindly for his glasses. "Just pick it up off your face."

"I don't want to touch I when it's alive."

He placed the glasses on his face. Now he was awake. "I'll be right there." Mark got out of bed and grabbed his camera, doing a slow morning walk over to Roger's room. "February 10th, 9:04 AM Eastern Standard Time. It appears that some rodent has snuck into the loft again, and has decided that Roger's face was comfortable and tasty." Mark didn't stop until he reached Roger's room, opened the door and took the scene in. There was a small animal standing on Roger's head, its own head bent down and licking Roger's unruly bed hair. And then Mark laughed. "Roger, it's just a kitten."

"I don't care what it is, just get it off me."

Mark laughed again and put his camera down. "Hey there." He spoke to the tiny cat as he picked it up. The cat was tiny and so skinny that he could feel its ribs. It had smooth black fur, and looked up at him with bright green eyes. "Aren't you cute." He smiled at the cat.

Roger sat up, rubbed his face, and then gave Mark a look. "It tried to eat me."

"Well it's half starved." Mark used his free hand to scratch the cat's ears. "I'm going to go find it something to eat."

"What do we have that cats eat?"

"Milk." Mark turned to leave the room.

Roger started out after him. "Since when do we have milk?"

"Since I went shopping."

"Oh." He paused glancing around. "And you're going to give it to that thing?"

"It's not a thing. It's a kitten."

"It looks like an overgrown rat."

Sometime later, Roger was sitting on the couch with his guitar, working on something where the chords were never sounding right. Mark was in one of the chairs, and the kitten was in his lap. Most of his day had been spent with this cat. "Our little friend here is a girl, she's been declawed, and I think that this scar means that she's been fixed." He announced.

"Your little friend." Roger corrected quickly. "That thing is your little friend."

"She likes you." Mark pointed out. "I think she must have run away from her home or something. Do you think that we can--."

"No." Roger didn't look away from his work.

"You don't even know what I was going to ask." Mark stopped scratching the cat's ears for a moment.

"Yeah I do. You want to keep it."

"Her." Mark corrected. "I want to keep her. Now that I'm working we have the money and it's not like a dog. She's independent."

"Independent enough to shred everything in this place."

"She can't, she doesn't have claws. Besides…you would never do that would you?" Mark picked up the cat as he spoke so it was looking him in the eye.

Roger looked over. Mark was genuinely smiling. He hadn't seen that in a while. Mark was surely dealing with everything better than Roger knew he would have been, but he still hadn't seen a happy smile on Mark's face in a long time. But…it was a cat. Roger didn't really love animals, and it was kind of hard for him to picture one in the loft. A cat, getting it's fur all over his clothes. But the cat was making Mark happy, and Roger missed seeing that. He sighed. "Happy Birthday."

"What?" Mark lowered the kitten back into his lap.

"Isn't your birthday in a few days?"

"Four." Mark elaborated. He was a Valentine's baby.

"Well, happy birthday. You've got yourself a cat." For Roger it almost seemed to touching. "Just keep her out of my room." He added this for good measure.

"Thanks."

"Whatever." Roger went back to his playing and it was silent until his chord went sour again. His playing morphed into Musetta's Waltz.

Mark watched as the kitten left his lap and sauntered over to the couch, and leapt onto it. Roger didn't take notice of this until the kitten attempted to climb on his shoulder. "What is she doing?" He pried her off of his shoulder and put her on couch before starting to play the waltz again. And the cat tried climbing again. "Mark, what is this cat doing?"

Mark had grabbed his camera. "You started playing that and she went right over to you."

"Well tell her to stop."

"She's a cat. You can't just tell her to stop. Cats do whatever, whenever they want."

"Sounds like Maureen."

There's that. More coming very soon. Please review, and tell me what you think.


	11. Mimi

Disclaimer: I don't anything. Including my soundtrack because it still hasn't come. But don't get me started on that.

Author's notes: Thanks for all of the feed back. Here comes a set of semi-dramatic chapters. I hope you enjoy them.

Just one more note, I do realize that my timeline on how soon Mark found out about his HIV is really off, but I had to alter facts a little, because otherwise I would have had to do so much more of the whole Roger feeling all depressed about Mark hating him thing, and I didn't want to do that. So basically you can attribute any fallacies about HIV/AIDS that I have in this story to the fact that I needed something to happen for my plan. I do not mean to bastardize the disease or anything, but I tend to take creative license with facts sometimes.

"What the hell are you doing?"

Mark looked down from his position on top of the ladder. Where they had gotten a ladder from he wasn't sure, but now he was on it, looking through a hole in the corner of the ceiling, his head getting hit with snowflakes that were coming in through the hole. Roger was standing below him, with a look on his face that matched his statement. "I think this is where Musetta got in." He replied quickly, as though this explained everything.

"Musetta?"

"The cat. Since she liked the waltz so much."

"Oh." Roger paused very briefly. "But what the hell are you doing?" He repeated his question.

"I wanted to see if I could fix it so she couldn't get back out." Mark's one made it seem as though this entire thing was obvious.

"Well, unless you leave the ladder there, she's not going to be able to get back up there."

"Well, we'll have more heat if we fix it anyways." Mark pointed out, and he breifly rubbed his bare hands together. "Do we have a hammer?"

Roger snorted. "No. And even if we did I wouldn't give it to you. You're going to kill yourself, get down from there."

"No, I'm not. And I'm going to fix this. We can't just have snow come into the apartment. I think I'm gonna go see if there's anything down in the old office." Mark started down the ladder, crying out softly when his foot hit a patch of barely melted snow that had drifted in.

Roger moved quickly, and caught the filmmaker before he had barely fallen off of the ladder. "I told you that you'd hurt yourself." He admonished with a grin at his friend's face as he lowered him to the floor. "Imagine what would have happened if I hadn't been here. My poor Marky-Man would have been lying on the floor, alone and hurt." He paused his teasing a little, looking at the melting flakes in Mark's hair. He ruffled it. "Being snowed on."

Mark gave him a pointed look. "I wouldn't have fallen if you weren't distracting me."

"Whatever." Roger rolled his eyes. "Why don't you just let me and Collins handle any repairs around here OK. Marky-Man has more important things to worry about."

"Fine." Mark nodded, not bothering to get mad about Roger's implications because he knew Roger was just trying to look out for him. He glanced around the room, his eyes settling on his own arm. "Why doesn't Roger Doger take his hand off my arm?"

Roger quickly moved his hand, turning around as he did so, heading towards the door. "I'm gonna go pick up our meds. You need anything?"

"Nope."

"K, well, I might stop by the Life to see if they'll deliver food for your surprise party tonight." Roger had been joking about giving Mark a birthday party for the past four days. "Be here when I get back."

Before Mark could ask when that would be, Roger was gone. With a sigh he grabbed the ladder and folded it, briefly going onto the roof and placed the ladder back where he had found it. Outside it was snowing, and cold. Almost as cold as it was inside the loft, but not quite. Not wanting to stay out for longer than he had to, Mark quickly went back inside, rubbing his hands together as he did so.

Inside he found himself at a loss of what to do. Musetta was sleeping, curled tightly on Roger's bed, so he didn't want to disturb her. His film was currently at a standstill, nothing was turning out right, so working on that wasn't an option. He was trying to decide whether or not watching what he had would help him when there was a knock at the door to distract him.

It had barely been five minutes since Roger had left, so Mark figured it was him, having left something behind, as well as his keys. "What'd you forget?" He asked with a sigh as slid the door open, turning back around at the same time.

"Got a light?"

The voice that asked was feminine and sultry. Definitely not Roger. Mark turned around quickly. "Mimi…" He trailed off at the sight of the dancer.

Mimi was standing in the doorway a smile on her face. She was wearing, jeans, a coat and a few sweaters, which were clean, not torn like they used to be. Her eyes were no longer surrounded by shadows, her face had filled out. She was still skinny, but it was a healthy skinny. Overall she looked better than Mark had ever seen her. "Mark!" Her eyes lit up and the smile grew on her face as she walked in, pulling him into a hug. "It's so good to see you."

"Umm, well…" Mark trailed off again, unsure of how to respond to the girl in front of him. He was barely able to return the hug out of shock.

"Where's Roger?" She pulled away, and the smile returned to it's coy state.

"He um…" Mark scratched behind his ear nervously. "He went to pick up our AZT." It took Mark a moment to process exactly what he had just said. "Fuck." He muttered under his breath.

"You?" Her smile faded. Mark nodded with little other choice. "Oh Mark, what happened?" She ushered him a bit further into the loft, almost forcing him to sit by the kitchen table.

Mark didn't really want to answer. In the back of his mind he knew that she should be the one having to answer the questions. But in the front of his mind he knew that she should be able to talk about it. And Mimi, he didn't really know what would happen between Roger and Mimi now, but he had a feeling if Roger got over whatever anger he felt at her for running, they'd be real close again, and he should probably have a stable relationship with her. "My stepfather happened."

"You…have a stepfather?" Mimi sat near him. The question made it clear about how little she really knew about Mark. Everyone knew that he had a stepfather, just not to mention him.

"Since I was eight." Mark responded bitterly. "The gist of the story is that he was a fucking asshole."

"I'm sorry." She looked relatively upset about the whole thing, but she was glancing around the whole apartment. "That…it really sucks."

"You're telling me." He followed her eyes, watching as they landed on Roger's guitar. For a moment Mark felt a twinge of something, but he wasn't sure what.

"How are you dealing with it?"

Mark wanted to send back a biting remark about how he was only raped and given a death sentence. About how fabulous he was feeling after that. But he couldn't voice this thought. "About as well as can be expected I guess."

"Have you tried Life Support? They're great at listening, and giving advice. I think you'd like it a lot."

"I've been thinking about it." That was a lie. Mark had no desire to ever go to those meetings. They were supposed to affirm life, but all they did was ever depress him.

"You really should." Mimi didn't say anything for a moment. "Gosh, Mark. It's so hard to think that you have it too." She put a hand on his arm. "I'm so sorry that this happened to you.

He watched. She still wasn't looking at him. "Get your hand off of me." He pulled his hand away, something suddenly snapping, his mind going a mile a minute giving him reasons why he shouldn't care about her.

"Mark what's wrong?" Mimi frowned.

"You are. You're not really sorry." He stood. "It's the same as it always was. You're pretending to care, and you'll keep pretending until Roger shows up, and then you'll just cling onto him and forget what it was you were doing."

Mimi tugged on the sleeves of her coat. "Mark you know that's not true."

"Yeah it is." Mark found the talking coming to him far more easily now. "You'll tell him how sorry you are, and beg him to take you back, and he will, and then the only person in the world will be you again."

"Fuck you Mark. I love Roger. I will always be there for him."

"Then where have you been the past ten months?" Mark challenged quickly. Now he was having a hard time to not speak his mind.

"I was in rehab. I got clean. I got a real job." Mimi informed.

"For how long? Two, three months this time?"

She stood indignantly. "For good!"

"That's what you said the last time, and then you just went back to the smack the second things got a little tough."

Mark would have kept going, but Mimi's hand collided with his cheek, her nails dragging across the skin.

"Mark you shouldn't leave the door open. You're letting all the heat out." Both people in the loft turned; Mimi to face the door, and Mark away from it, where he walked into his room, closing the door. It was Roger, who had made record time on the Meds run. He had his mouth open to talk again, but he could only form one word. "Mimi."


	12. Dork

Disclaimer: Still don't own it.

Author's notes: Nothing to add this chapter. Just edited the ending a little.

_Italics are flashbacks._

"Roger!" All traces of Anger left Mimi's face and she rushed forward, hugging the musician with a force that caused him to drop the little white bag that held the prescriptions.

"Mimi." Roger repeated in a shocked tone. He didn't return the hug, but at the moment he was having a hard time doing anything. "What are you-."

"It's so good to see you!" Mimi pulled away, doing a little twirl as she grinned. "I missed you so much."

"I uh…where have you been?" Roger was able to ask the question that Mark had been unable to formulate just minutes ago. He was most definitely shocked about seeing her at the loft, and he was naturally curious…about everything.

"I went back to my mom. She put me through rehab. I'm clean now Baby." She put a hand on his arm, bringing him further into the loft. "I'm clean, and I'm not dancing anymore. I got a job at the Macy's. It's really boring but it pays better than the Cat Scratch ever did." Mimi was positively glowing, and hanging onto Roger, like she had before she disappeared. "And I start school next month. I'll finally be able to make something out of myself, like we always talked about. You know, what I told you about wanting to be a teacher. Remember Roger?"

"Yeah I remember." Roger sighed. He remembered that that particular confession always came when she got high.

"Roger, baby. You don't sound happy." Mimi rubbed his arm, up and down, as though trying to stimulate him. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." His eyes wandered around the loft, and they landed on Mark's closed door. Why had he left so quickly? "It's just…god Meems. What are you doing here?" He ran a hand through his hair, moving away from the girl.

"What do you mean? I came to see you."

"That's just it Mimi. Why?"

"Because I love you Roger."

"No. Why now, Meems? Why not ten months ago?"

"I didn't want you to see me like that Baby. I went through some bad shit. I didn't want you to see me until I was really good again."

"And you couldn't write or call? Mimi we thought you were dead."

"But I'm not." She tilted her head a little at his face. "Roger…Baby…I did this for you. Back then I didn't deserve you. You turned your life around, and I was still a junkie. I know you wanted me clean, but I just couldn't do that. Especially not here. I had to leave so I could do this."

"Mimi, you shouldn't have gotten clean for me."

"But that's what you-…"

"You should have gotten clean for yourself."

"Roger, I don't understand. Aren't you happy?"

"No, I'm not Mimi. You can't expect me to just drop everything now that you're back."

"I thought you loved me."

"Meems, I haven't been burned a lot in my life, but it feels like every time that I am you're involved." Roger turned away. "I can't just start something with you again. It would be great for a couple months, and then something would happen and we'd all be back where we started."

"Baby, it's not gonna be like that anymore." Mimi walked so that she was in front of him, showing him the candle that she still held in one hand. "We could light the candle."

"Mimi…I've moved on. I don't want your candle anymore."

She leaned in closer. "Roger, just give this a chance." She placed her lips on his, starting gently, and then going harder, just like she used to.

He pushed her away quickly. "Mimi, I don't want to give this a chance. You're acting like a kid who didn't get what she wanted for Christmas."

"Stop talking to me like I'm a little kid!" She glared, her attitude switching once more.

"You are a little kid. You're barely 21."

"That didn't matter before." She pleaded a little with him.

Roger rolled his eyes. "You didn't act like it before. Mimi, this…" He used his arm, gesturing around the loft. "Isn't going to be enough for you very long. I don't want to have to waste my time worrying about whether or not you're keeping your word about staying clean and whatever else."

"I should tell you you're a bastard."

"Just take your candle and get out of here Mimi. Maybe we can talk when we're both thinking clearly." Roger ushered her out of the apartment, closing the door quickly behind her. Then his game plan quickly changed. "Mark?" He changed directions, heading over to the closed bedroom door. "Mark?" He tried again, rapping his knuckles on the wood.

"It's open Roger." The filmmaker's voice drifted through the door. It wasn't an upset tone like Roger had thought it might have been, just an indifferent one.

Roger opened the door, leaning against the doorframe as he did so. Mark was just sitting on his bed, thumbing through a magazine. He would have thought it was normal, except that he had three bloody red scratches on his cheek. "Shit Mark, did Mimi do that?"

"Yeah." Mark mumbled, closing the magazine, looking up at his friend, who looked like he was about to start laughing. Not what he expected after hearing the argument that he just had.

"Geez. We're gonna have to get you in a self defense class or something. You're always getting beat up." The line wasn't really all that funny, but it got Mark to smile a little.

"Don't be such a dork Rog." For a moment it was as though Mimi hadn't just shown up and had a fight with each of them.

But then Roger caught sight of the scratches again. "Come on. We should get those cleaned up. You don't want an infection." Mark just got up and followed him to the bathroom, where the first aid kit was. He knew at this point there wasn't really any point in arguing with Roger. Normally he was the one that took care of everything, but Mark knew that when Roger decided that he was going to take care of something, he was stubborn. "Sit." He ordered.

Mark complied, sitting on the edge of the bathtub. He watched as Roger turned, opening up the medicine cabinet. "You should put on a pair of those rubber gloves we had for back when I wasn't positive." He informed quietly. "You have that cut from trying to make dinner the other day, and we could have different strains of the virus. We shouldn't risk infecting each other with different strains."

"How'd you know that?" Roger asked, taking out their first aid kit. It was something Mark had insisted on buying after they had found April, but they rarely used it.

"It was in that pamphlet the clinic gives you when they give you your results." Mark shrugged.

"You actually read that?" Roger gave him a look, as he pulled on a pair of rubber gloves as was requested. Mark nodded. "And you were calling me a dork." He opened the first aid kit, looking over it real quick, before pulling out an alcohol wipe. "What did you say? To piss Mimi off like that?"

"Same thing that you did." Mark answered. "Just a little less patient than you were." He paused, seeing the irony in the statement. "Bet you never thought you'd hear that did you?"

Roger just shook his head smiling, ripping open the alcohol wipe packet. "This is gonna sting a little." He started to pat it along the scratches gently, and heard Mark hiss at the contact. "That is what I'm supposed to say isn't it?" He aimed at distracting him.

"It's something like that." Mark wasn't really focused on him though. His dream was trying to force it's way back to the front of his mind again. _"Take a leap of faith, Honey."_ He was trying to force it away again, but for some reason it was harder, with Roger right in front of him…touching his face.

"Wow, she dug you pretty good." Roger remarked throwing the wipe away.

"I was a little harsh with her." Mark sighed, as though trying to justify it.

Roger sighed, pulling out a band aid. "Why? She never did anything to hurt you."

"Well, she hurt you. And I'm allowed to be pissed off about that. So in turn I'm allowed to be pissed off at her." Mark explained easily. _"Take a leap of faith, Honey." _The voice was there again, louder. Still just as cheery.

"That's oddly touching of you Cohen." Roger grinned, plastering the band aid across Mark's cheek. "There you go. Good as new."

"I'm so glad that I have Dr. Davis here to help me." He rolled his eyes. Neither of the bohemians moved. Away that is. To Mark it seemed like Roger was coming closer to him. _"Take a leap of faith, Honey."_ So Mark closed the distance, and their lips met, in a gentle yet passionate kiss.

OK, more next weekend. Please tell me what you think.


	13. Closer

Disclaimer: I still don't own it. I know, I know, you all thought that today was the day that you would find out that I had bought the rights but…no.

Author's notes: This chapter took me forever, for some reason writer's block chose to strike me for an entire week, and it is a rather plotless chapter just to make some time go by and resolve the kiss and relationship between Mark and Roger. However I'm back, and it's winter break so that means a lot more updates.

Thank you for the reviews and all of the constructive criticism.

_Italics are flashbacks._

"_Should I even bother asking what's going on?"_

_Roger and Mark jerked apart abruptly, sliding apart to nearly opposite sides of the bathroom. Roger ran a hand through his hair, glancing around nervously, and Mark was blushing furiously. "We were just…uh…" Roger sputtered a little, looking a his long time friend that was standing in the doorframe._

"_You were kissing." Collins filled in with a little grin on his face. "I caught that part."_

"_Mark got some scratches on his cheek." Roger informed, as though this explained everything. "And we wanted to bandage it so…"_

"_So I wouldn't get an infection." Mark inserted, starting to get over the embarrassment. "We didn't want for me to get an infection."_

_Collins nodded, and then looked back and forth between the two for a moment. "And Roger putting his tongue down your throat…that's the latest in antibiotic medicine isn't it?" He teased. When he got no response he just continued. "Roger, you know the other day I got this paper cut and…"_

"_Screw off." Roger started to remove his rubber gloves, even though a smile was starting to appear on his face._

"_Hey it's cool." Collins shrugged, standing up straight. "I'll just let you two finish with your breakthrough medical research."_

They hadn't gone back to their "medical research." That night at least. Neither one would mention the kiss again. It had just…happened, and there didn't seem to be a need to talk about it. Things happened all the time. They didn't discuss every aspect of those things, so there wasn't a need to talk about this.

It just wasn't long before other little things just started happening.

_Mark walked into the loft after working the afternoon shift at the theater. He hadn't actually done anything, because only two people showed up to see the film in the first place. All he had to do was start it. There were no bothersome tasks of checking tickets and whatnot. He had put the movie on, and then he had taken out his book and read it. _

_Now he was planning on doing the same thing. Sitting on the couch and reading, probably with a blanket, and a mug of tea. The first thing he saw was a blanketed lump on the couch. A head was poking out of the top and leaning back on top. There was a light snoring sound. Mark's footsteps automatically grew lighter at the first sight of his roommate sleeping on the couch._

_He could see Musetta curled on Roger's lap as he got into the loft further, closing the door quietly, putting his camera on one of the stray crates, taking his book out of his coat, but leaving his coat on. Trying just one light switch told him that the power was out, and with that went the heat. So much for his tea. There was plenty of light in the apartment now, but Mark knew soon enough that it would be dimming. A glance told him that all the candles were placed around the apartment. He was about to go get their packet of matches when his floor hit a squeaky floorboard and a loud creak echoed in the apartment._

_Roger's snoring stopped abruptly. "Mark is that you?" His voice was quiet, and horse; the words slurred together due to the fact that he was barely awake. He brought his head up so that he was sitting up straight._

"_Yeah." Mark walked over stopping in front of the couch. "Sorry I woke you up." He apologized. He bent over, scratching Musetta's ears; in response she rolled over and started to purr for him._

"_No man it's fine." Roger brought one hand out from under his faded quilt, rubbing his face a little. "What time is it?"_

_He glanced down a his watch. "Four thirty."_

"_You back from work?" Roger's hand went back underneath the blanket, probably where it was at least a few degrees warmer. _

"_Yeah." Mark stopped petting Musetta, standing up straighter. _

_Roger didn't say anything for a moment. "Well get a blanket before you do anything. It's freezing in here." This was the type of thing Roger had taken to saying. It was very Mark of him, but saying things like that just made him feel better, like he was taking care of the filmmaker, even though he knew that he was doing it all on his own._

"_I was planning on that. Reading and all." Mark held up the worn paperback in his hand as though that made it all very self explanatory._

"_What are you reading?" Natural curiosity._

"_Tom Sawyer." Mark flipped the book over glancing at the cover where the image was nearly gone, with numerous creases in the middle. He'd probably read it about a dozen times, it was one of his favorites when he was in school, the entire concept just appealed to him. "Have you read it?"_

"_I've always meant to." Roger shrugged. "Never got around to it."_

_Mark handed him the book. "Here. I'll go get something else."_

"_No." Roger shook his head. "Read it with me."_

"_What?" Mark nearly laughed at the request. It was kind of ridiculous, and Roger wasn't really the type of person to request something like that. _

"_You heard me." Roger gave him a look. "I'm tired. There's no way I'll focus reading on my own. Come sit here and read with me." He lifted up one corner of the blanket, inviting his friend to sit next to him. _

_Mark barely thought about it before sitting down and tucking the blanket around himself as well before opening up the book to the introduction. "Most of the adventures in this book really occurred;" He paused his reading briefly as he felt Roger shift closer so they were nearly snuggled together. Body heat started to be shared. "One or two of the experiences were my own, the rest of boys who were schoolmates of mine. Huck Finn is drawn from life; Tom Sawyer also…"_

_Mark continued reading for about an hour, until he realized that Roger had fallen asleep again. He placed his bookmark in their stopping spot and tossed the book onto the crate that was in front of him. He let out a sigh he didn't realize that he needed to, then glanced over to his roommate, who had a content look on his face. It hit him that this was the first time that he had been really truly comfortable about such close contact with someone since his stepfather. Leaning in he placed a gently kiss on Roger's temple because it felt right, and then put his head on his friend's shoulder, closing his eyes to go to sleep for the night._

This sort of behavior continued. The roommates grew closer, continuing to hang out, sitting next to each other, sharing a blanket, or just holding hands. They didn't talk about it; they just allowed it to happen. Once in a while there was a stolen kiss, but not often. It was a month before anyone but Collins knew.

"_So how long have you two been fucking?"_

_Mark's cheeks went bright red as the comment was made. It was such a Maureen thing that she had said as she entered the loft, coming upon Mark watching some footage that he had just filmed two days ago of him and Roger playing with Musetta. It wasn't like the footage was much more than two friends having fun, but if you paid attention, you could see the extra bit of light in their eyes when they looked at each other…the way their hands would linger a little when they touched. _

"_We well…" Mark didn't answer right away. The question flustered him. It was hard to define a relationship to someone when you hadn't even defined it with the person you were having it with. "We uh…"_

"_Gosh Marky, just answer the question." Maureen giggled, tossing her purse onto the floor. "It's not like I'm gonna care. Practically everyone we know is gay."_

_Mark ran a hand through his hair, like he often saw Roger do. It had very little effect with him, and he just blushed more. "It's not like that exactly…it's just that we…"_

_She rolled her eyes. "Gosh. I just want to know how long my ex has been sleeping with his roommate. You'd think I could get a straight answer." She giggled again. "No pun intended."_

"_We're not sleeping together." A new, much more collected voice spoke. Roger came out of his room, holding his guitar. "We're just…" He sighed, thinking of the right words. "We've gotten a lot closer lately."_

And it was good. They started going out a lot more with the group, still together, still getting closer. Mark and Roger would take their meds together, do just about everything together. Life was really going well.

Until one afternoon in the summer they got home from a day in Central Park.

"_Speak!"_

"_Mark, Mark it's Cindy!" The female voice on the answering machine was upset, and urgent. She sounded as though she had been crying. "You have to come back to Scarsdale. There's been an accident. Mom and Richard are in a lot of trouble. The doctor's said that they might not make it. "Mark, pick up the god damn phone!"_

There's that. Just to put everything in time perspective, the summer day was in July, meaning that it has been roughly seven months since the Christmas Eve where the story started.


	14. Family

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

Author's notes: More, more, more. Here it is. Thanks for all the reviews!

Mark stood in front of the hospital doors, staring at them as though some form of telekinetic power would just open them for him. Bold words were staring him back in the face. 'Scarsdale Community Hospital Main Admitting Area—Push Door To Open.'

Roger stood next to his roommate/something a bit more than friends as they had started to call it, looking back and forth between the door and Mark. "Mark, we don't have to be here." He offered quietly, stopping his gaze on Mark. "We can just get back on the bus."

Mark hadn't said much since the phone call from Cindy. He had said even less since they had gotten onto the bus to Scarsdale. Now Mark talking was nonexistent.

"I have to go in." Mark spoke glancing back at Roger. "Even if its only for five minutes to prove how much Cindy is exaggerating…because she is." He added as an afterthought.

To Roger it sounded as though Mark was trying to convince himself, which he thought was weird, considering the way Mark had never exactly loved his family. "Then the first step would be to open the door."

"I can't." Mark turned back to the door. "My family's in there."

"Then we'll go back to the bus station."

"But I have to go in."

Roger sighed. "Mark, you know that I'm going to go with you whatever your choice is, but seriously. If you don't just make up your mind I'm going to pick you up and carry you to where I want to go." He watched Mark's face flicker in indecisiveness before he took a resigned step forward, shoving the door open and walking in. "I guess that means we're going in then." He caught the door before it closed and walked in after Mark, who was waiting for a receptionist that looked less than enthralled to be there to get off the phone.

"Mark!" They didn't have to wait very long. A redheaded woman that looked about 30 was walking hurriedly down the hallway. "Mark, oh god, it's horrible!" As she got closer, they could see her face was tear streaked, eyes red and puffy, and her nose was quite red and shiny. "Come on, they're upstairs." She grabbed his arm, and started dragging him violently. After a brief moment of suppressing his laughter at Mark's forceful sister, Roger followed. Not a single word was spoken as they went up two flights of stairs down a hallway, turned right, went down another hallway went up three more flights of stairs, down one last hallway and into a small room where there was a woman lying in the bed asleep. "Mom. Mark's here. And his friend um…" She announced quickly. She didn't wake up.

"Roger." Roger filled in quietly, holding up a hand in a short uncomfortable wave towards the woman. He wasn't about to offer his hand to her. "I'm Mark's friend Roger."

"Oh right…" The woman wiped her face. "The one with…" She trailed off.

Mark looked around the room, out of breath. As far as he could tell, nothing was wrong with his mother, who was lying on the bed. She wasn't hooked up to any monitors; there was a small cut on her forehead, but that was it. She was just sleeping. "This is it? We ran up the stairs with you for this? Cindy why didn't we take an elevator? Mom's not going anywhere." His tone and his face matched. Extremely annoyed. But on the bright side Richard was not in the room. He wasn't ready for that.

Cindy gave him a look. "We didn't take an elevator because the stairs are faster. And dad will be out of surgery any minute. I wanted to be here when he got here."

"He is not our father." Mark crossed his arms over his chest, and then sighed, uncrossing them. "I can't believe you rushed me down here for him. I thought you said the accident was serious."

"It is for him. I don't understand what you have against him anyways. You never even gave him a chance." Cindy got a little agitated, seemingly forgetting her emotions from earlier.

Mark hesitated from a moment. "I can't believe you Cindy. When you called you made it sound like Mom was already dead. This is nothing." He gestured around the room, carefully dancing around the subject of his stepfather.

"I was upset! I am upset!" She shot back quickly. "God Mark, I don't understand you at all. Why aren't you upset at all! Your flesh and blood is in the hospital. Your stepfather is lying on an operating table and he could be dying."

"I hope he his." Roger muttered. It had just come out, he hadn't really meant to say it out loud. But just thinking about everything Richard had put Mark through made an intense hatred come up. He was brought back into the room by Cindy's hand colliding with his cheek. "What the hell?"

"How can you say that about Mark's family?" She challenged.

"That bastard is not Mark's family!" Roger shouted before he could stop himself.

Mark put a hand on his arm, recognizing the look of rage in Roger's eyes and hoping to make it retreat. "Roger calm down."

Cindy glared. "Who do you think you are to talk about his family? What do you know about family? Who do you have? Your drug dealer!"

"Cindy!" Mark's eyes widened at the comment.

"I've known Mark for ten years. He is my family!" Roger had taken a deep breath before saying this. It came out to be a little less harsh, but was still quite angry. "And I know more about him than you ever will."

"Just because he was a little shit and ran away because he couldn't deal with the fact that mom had moved on from our dad!"

Mark knew things were bad now, because Cindy would rarely swear. But he was also getting angrier. "You don't know why I ran away, and if you think that that was the reason then you have a lot—,"

"Oh come off it. 'You don't know why I ran away.'" Cindy mocked angrily cutting him off. "What does it matter! You abandoned our family!"

"Well if you hate me so much then why the hell did you call me!" Mark was going to continue, but his watch went off. "Shit." He muttered, turning to Roger. "Where's our stuff?"

Roger reached into his pocket, pulling out two bottles, handing one over to Mark. "Here." Both opened their bottles, taking out their doses and swallowing the pills dry. Roger took the bottles back, and they went into his pocket.

"What was that stuff?" Cindy looked back and forth between the two, her anger suddenly tamed. "Was that AZT? Mark, are you sick too?" When she didn't get an answer she through her hands up in the air, glaring at Roger once more. "Great. Now you gave my little brother AIDS."

"I didn't give him anything." Roger took a step forward, ignoring the hand that Mark had put back on his arm.

She rolled her eyes. "How else did he get it?"

"I would never do anything to hurt Mark. You might want to talk to your precious father about that one."

She slapped him again. "Richard loves Mark! He just got mad at him because he ran away and didn't try to be a good son! He wouldn't do anything to hurt Mark either."

"Could have fooled me."

"Um…excuse me?" A doctor in scrubs ducked into the room. "This is the Cohen family correct?"

Cindy's visage relaxed a little and she turned. "Yes, do you have any news about Richard?"

"Yes well…you see there were some complications during the surgery. And we exercised every option within our power, but we were unable to revive him. I'm quite sorry." The doctor left just quickly.

Roger watched Mark as he heard the news. For a moment the boy looked as though the world was off his shoulders, and then all the stress seemed to return. "So, what now?" He asked quietly.

Cindy seemed to have forgotten everything, rushing over to her mother's bedside and grabbing her mother's hand.

"I…well…" Mark brought Roger out into the hall. "I think I have to stay for the funeral."

Roger didn't understand why he would want to, but he nodded anyway and didn't say anything about it. He was still agitated about Cindy, and bringing up Mark's strange sense of loyalty wouldn't help things. He listened as Mark explained the rest of his thoughts, including how he should go back to New York now. This was where he protested, not wanting to leave Mark alone, but in the end, he conceded knowing that Mark was right. If he stayed, all that would happen would be that things would be worse in the long run.

So they ate a cheap hospital cafeteria soup together, and then Roger went back to the bus station, to go back to the city.

There's one. Glad to get Richard out of the picture for good. Next one will be up soon.


	15. Angel Interlude Two

Disclaimer: Don't own it.

Author's notes: Thank you for all the reviews. Here is another Angel interlude, which means this section is shorter, but gets into peoples heads more. Well…Mark's head. And the flashback really has nothing to do with the rest of the chapter. It's basically just what happened before the cemetery, and I wanted it there.

_Italics are flashbacks. Like you don't know that by now._

"_Speak!"_

"_Roger, I know you're there. Stop screening."_

_Roger jumped off of his chair and hurried over to the phone, muttering a string of obscenities as he tripped over…something. "Mark!"_

"_You sound out of breath, are you all right?" The filmmaker's tone instantly gained concern, and all thoughts of a greeting went out of his mind._

_Roger had to wonder how his friend could switch dispositions so quickly, but just shook the thought from his head. "I was just in the shower and I heard you." An easy, believable lie that reminded Roger to actually have one later._

"_Oh."_

"_So where the hell are you?" Roger quickly changed the subject. "It's been a week since you called last. You said it would only be a day or two more."_

_Mark sighed. "I know. Sorry about that."_

_Roger heard something in his voice, but he wasn't sure exactly what it was. He didn't like it though. "No it's fine. Where are you?"_

"_A payphone at Port Authority."_

"_Well what are you doing there? Get your ass home." Roger couldn't keep the smile off his face at the thought of seeing Mark again. He hadn't seen him since the night of the fight with Cindy._

"_Well I'll be there soon, but I was gonna go see if I could--." He coughed. "I was gonna go see if I could catch Collins and the others at the cemetery. It's an Angel day."_

"_How about I meet you there?" Roger suggested quickly. He had forgotten about the group's plans to go to the grave today; now it seemed like a good, quick way to see Mark sooner._

"_Sure." He paused, his voice a little strained. "I'll see you there."_

"_Hey, are you sick?" Roger asked quickly. But Mark was already gone._

"Mark, how are you doing man?" Collins pulled Mark into a hug when he saw the younger man enter the graveyard. As he pulled back he gave him the once over. "Have you lost weight?"

Mark winced a little at the contact and skirted around the question. "I'm good. I'm relieved that he's gone." He swallowed and winced again.

"Relieved that who's gone?" Maureen asked as she bounced up from Angel's gravestone, Joanne right behind her. Joanne lightly slapped her partner's arm in admonishment as though to tell her that it was extremely rude and dumb of her to even ask. Even though they didn't know exactly what had happened between Mark and his stepfather, they knew that it had been bad, and that he had been to his funeral. Realization dawned on her. "Oh."

Mark glanced around a little. "Yeah."

"Well it's good to have you back Marky." Maureen quickly pulled him into a hug, trying to dismiss the awkward moment.

"It's good to be…anywhere but my mother's."

Joanne frowned a little at his strained voice. "Do you have a sore throat or something Mark? You sound horse."

"It's nothing." Mark put the back pack that he had used for his things on the trip to Scarsdale. "I'm gonna go talk to Angel. Roger should be here in a minute or two." Mark walked over to the tombstone, and sat down in front of it. "Hey Angel…so Richard's dead, and there was a bit of an incident after the funeral, but you probably knew about that. I'm not really sure how to tell anyone, because I get the feeling that it might end up…well…I haven't even been able to tell Maureen, Joanne, and Benny that I'm sick. I don't want them to worry.

"Especially Roger." He added as an afterthought, a few raindrops starting to fall. "I'm not sure if anyone's told you, because I haven't been able to come here lately, but Roger and I are a lot closer now. I guess it's pretty much a relationship. We're really happy." The rain started a bit harder and Mark just started to let his thoughts out, not bothering to formulate things before he said them. "We don't have sex or anything, but I don't think that we really have to, you know? It's like we're already that close. Not like it was with Maureen, or anybody else.

"And you brought us together. I had this dream, and you told me to take a leap of faith, so I did. I really owe you for that one Angel." Mark paused to cough. "I just don't want to mess things up now. I sort of feel like telling him about everything would do that, because he'd be worrying too much. He's been doing that more. Worrying about me.

"And I know that keeping things from him isn't a good idea either." Mark shook his head. It was amazing how he was able to just sort through his problems when he was talking to nobody. "So I guess I should just tell him." And he coughed again. "You're great Angel. I don't think I've told you that lately."

"You haven't told her what lately?"

The voice behind him caused Mark to jump up from his sitting position and turn around. "Roger." He breathed a sigh of a relief, a slight smile going on his face in spite of himself.

Roger laughed. "Did I scare you?" He pulled him into a hug, kissing his forehead.

"No it's just…" Mark shook his head. "I'm…it's good to be back."

Roger stepped back, watching his rain soaked companion's eyes close. "Hey, you OK?" Mark didn't answer. "Mark?"

Mark's eyes reopened. "Roger, do me a favor…catch me." And then his eyes rolled backwards into his skull and his knees buckled beneath him.

Oh, I'm evil. Don't worry. The next chapter is already in the works.


	16. Big Deal

Disclaimer: Don't own it.

Author's notes: Thank you reviewers. I did research for this chapter and I think all of my medical facts are relatively accurate, however I had sites that contradicted each other although they were both sites that were respectable so I just sort of was picking and choosing data for what I needed for the story. See one of my previous author notes if you are mad about this.

Roger quickly latched his hands onto Mark's body, feeling the weight quickly transfer to him. "Mark? Mark?" When he got no response he turned around. "Collins!" He shouted quickly before turning his attention back to Mark. "Mark, can you hear me?" He lowered him to the ground carefully, taking his hand in his own. "Mark come on, wake up." He used his other hand to lightly slap Mark's cheek.

"What happened?" Collins asked from behind upon his arrival.

"He just passed out." Roger turned back around. "He sounded sick. Is he sick?"

Maureen and Joanne bounded up. "Oh my god, Mark!" Maureen clapped a hand to her chest. "Is he alright?"

Joanne shot her a look. "Of course he's not alright he's unconscious. How can you ask a question like that?"

"Out of concern for a friend." Maureen just shot the look right back to her girlfriend. "What happened?"

"I just answered that Maureen." Now it was Roger's turn to send her a look.

"Well it's not my fault that I run slower than Collins!"

"He just passed out." Collins filled in for the two.

Joanne remained focused on Maureen ignoring this information. "You wouldn't be so out of shape if you went to the gym with me like I've asked you to."

"Excuse me, but you get all sweaty at the gym. And the only time that being sweaty is not gross is when we're having one of our hot passionate fu--."

"Nobody wants to hear about that Maureen." Joanne interrupted quickly.

"About what?" A groggy voice asked quietly.

"About Maureen and mine's sex life." Joanne answered without even thinking about the question.

"You're right I don't want to hear about that."

"Welcome back to the real world Mark." Collins was the first to notice that the filmmaker had awoken and was glancing around. All of the bickering and other forms of noise stopped.

Roger turned back around. "Mark, are you OK? What happened?"

Mark gave an uneasy half smile. "Did I scare you?" He repeated the words from earlier, hoping to lighten the mood. It didn't work.

"Yes." Roger answered, his tone no nonsense. "What's going on?"

"I'll explain later." Mark removed his hand from Roger's, and started to force himself into a sitting position. "We should get out of the rain."

Collins knelt down and put a hand on Mark's shoulder, forcing him to stay lying down. "Don't be getting up so fast. Relax. Rest a minute, then we should probably go to the doctor and get you checked out."

"I'm fine." Mark shook his head, taking Collins hand off of his body. "I don't have to go to the doctor's."

Joanne frowned. "Mark, you don't just pass out for no reason. This could be serious. You really should go."

"Listen to her Marky." Maureen nodded.

"I know what it is." Mark sat up. "Let's just go home, I'll explain when we get there." He paused at the look on Roger's face. "It's not a big deal." He assured, although the colorless skin of his own face probably didn't help matters much. He held his hand out for Roger. "Help me up?"

It was slow going back to the loft. In the time it took, Mark somehow managed to convince Joanne and Maureen to go home. It was mostly with the help of Collins. By the time they got inside, Mark was looking tired again, and the two men forced him onto the couch where Musetta was already sitting, curled tightly in a ball.

Roger sat on one chair near the couch, Collins on another. "OK Mark. What's the deal?"

"Well…" Mark launched into an explanation of how after the funeral he had gotten into another fight with Cindy that ended up involving just about everyone in his family, and everything had just started coming out. Somewhere in the process, someone had grabbed him, and that had put him into another panic attack. Nobody had known what to do, and they ended up having to call for an ambulance where the paramedics sedated him and took him to the hospital. He was fine but was out of it for a while. Then he explained how when he really came out of the whole thing his throat was really sore and he felt sick, and that the doctor had told him it was esophagitis, an infection that hit him because his T-cells were starting to go down.

This led to his explanation of how he had stayed away for a few extra days until the worst of it was over so he wouldn't be spread it to Collins or Roger, and how the infection made his throat so sore that it was difficult to eat. Hence the weight loss, and the passing out.

The entire explanation went uninterrupted, aside from Mark stopping to take sips from a glass of water that Collins had provided, starting to take a lozenge that the doctor had given him, or the occasional cough, but the second he finished, Collins spoke up. "I've gotten that a couple times. I have this tea back at my place that really helps. I can go get some." He offered. "And I can pick up some soup and other foods that are a lot easier to get down. Even though you're getting better that pain's gonna stick with you for a few days."

"Don't go to any trouble." Mark shook his head.

"It'll be more trouble if you starve yourself." Collins stood. "I'll be back later tonight."

After he left, Roger looked over to Mark. "So how are you feeling?"

"I'm fine I guess." He shrugged.

"So you don't think this is a big deal." Roger tried to make the comment seem nonchalant, but subtlety was Mark's specialty, not his.

"Not really." Mark transferred Musetta to his lap carefully. "You do though, don't you?"

Roger stood as though he was going to start pacing. "Well…yeah."

Mark grabbed his arm as he got in front of him. "Roger we both knew I was going to get sick eventually. It comes with the territory of being sick." He tried reason with the musician before things got out of hand with him. He could see where this was going.

"Yeah, but…shit Mark. I only got my first OI a couple months ago. You got diagnosed a couple months ago and you're getting one. You're supposed to have at least two years. That's what the doctor tells you when you first get diagnosed."

"I thought you didn't pay attention." Mark dropped his arm.

Roger started his pacing again. "I didn't. I found it in your pamphlet that he gave you."

It wasn't a particularly happy moment, but Mark had to smirk. "Now who's the dork?"

"I couldn't sleep one night and it was just lying around." Roger justified his actions quickly. "Mark why isn't this bothering you?" He stopped his walk and turned to face his friend.

Mark sighed. "Because…I already knew that I was going to die, didn't I?" He didn't wait for an answer. "So I have an aggressive strain of the virus…that just means it's going to come a bit faster. At least I don't have to sit around waiting and wondering if tomorrow's the day I'm going to go." He paused. "Why is this such a big deal for you?"

"I don't want to have to sit around and just watch you get sick and die!" Roger shouted suddenly. His response was well-timed, it's just that the emotion got the better of him.

Mark shouted right back, his own emotion getting the better of him, forcing him to ignore the pain it caused. "You don't think I felt that way when I wasn't sick! I never wanted to have to watch you go!"

"Damn it Mark, I'm not as strong as you! Or Collins, or whoever!" He wanted to throw something, but found nothing that wouldn't break and cause destruction.

"I'm not exactly gone yet Roger!"

"Well you act like you're just giving up and walking into your grave tomorrow!" Roger quickly shot back.

Mark didn't put a hand out to stop Musetta, who shot up at all of the shouting and leapt off of the couch. "Just because I'm accepting it doesn't mean I'm giving up! I know that I have more time if I fight it. You think that I don't want more time with everyone?" He shook his head again. "I want so much to be fine Roger. If I could go back in time and just not go see my mom and stepfather than I would, but I can't so I learned to just accept the fact that I'm going to die."

"Mark, I'm supposed to die first! I got sick first, that means I am supposed to die first!"

"Well, I guess I got so sick of taking care of you that I decided to force you to take care of me! Is that what you want to hear Roger? That I'm getting back at you for all those years of me taking care at you, and making you watch this happen to me! Because I'm not! And there is absolutely nothing keeping you here! If you don't want to be here then you should just leave and go back to Santa Fe or wherever it is you want to run to now!"

"I don't want to run anywhere Mark! I just don't want to have to sit around and watch someone that I love die!"

Mark's mouth was open to rebut, but nothing came out. He froze. "Did you just say that you love me?"

Roger didn't say anything for a moment. "Well you don't think that I would cuddle and read and kiss and all that stuff with someone that I don't love do you?"

"I love you too." He spoke a lot quieter now, the anger emotion gone. His voice was suddenly much more rough and strained. "Roger, I know this me getting sick thing is bad, but I'm not gone, and I don't plan on going until I finish my film. But we both know that I'm going to die."

"I know…I overreacted, I'm sorry." Roger apologized in an awkward manner, and then looked around, bending over at a crate and picking up a book. "We were on page 28 right?"

Mark sighed. "Roger I'm not reading to you."

"I know. I'm gonna read to you." He took a seat next to Mark.

"Roger you shouldn't get near me, I'll get you sick."

"Well we both know that I'm going to die eventually anyway." Roger threw Mark's words back in his face, and didn't give him a chance to respond before he started to read. "That's something else that gives me a royal pain. I mean if you're good at writing compositions and somebody starts talking about commas."

There's that one. Bonus points for anyone who can tell me what book Roger just started reading from.


	17. Film

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

Author's Notes: Thanks for the reviews and happy holidays to everyone. For those of you who are wondering, the book Roger started reading to Mark was The Catcher in the Rye. Quite a few of you got it right.

Well here's more.

_Italics are film. Which technically is also a flashback, but it's important to realize that somebody is watching it._

It never ceased to amaze Mark how quickly a year could go by. Well, not really, but watching it all on film made it seem so long ago. It was a good day, which meant that he was out and about, filming, and then working at the theater.

That was the routine now. On the days that he was sick he would stay home, Roger would be there, taking care of him. He would do the same on the days when it was Roger feeling sick. They would sit and read, or just hang out, doing little things that would make each other more comfortable. If it was Mark that was sick he would make Roger play his guitar; Roger would take up watching Mark edit his film. Sometimes they would just sit together and talk, or sometimes they would just stare at the wall. They liked being together on these days…These days that were starting to come more frequently for the both of them, more so for Mark.

And then on the days when they weren't sick, it was a whole other story. They loved to go out on these days to film, or be with their friends. It didn't really matter what they did, they just made sure to live their lives, and get as much done as possible. When Mark wasn't working. He would only work in the afternoons or evenings anyways, so even on these days if they got up early enough they could get out and do something.

Mark's boss, Rose, was understanding about everything. She would always pay him for his sick days and sometimes something extra that neither of them ever spoke about. When he would go into work, a lot of the time he would start the film, and she would come in, sending him off to work on his own film in the basement. That was where the previous owner would work on his own movies, and he had left all of his equipment. This happened on most days, but sometimes he would stay and watch the movie he had started. Those were the days that he was well enough to work, but not enough to do much else. Those were the days that Roger always tried to convince him to stay home.

That wasn't the case now. Now he was watching some of his footage downstairs in the basement, sitting on the only chair that wasn't covered in dust. It played on an old screen that was up against the wall, and he was wondering when he had shot this footage, because he had no memory of such events.

_Collins, Roger, and Mark were sitting on the floor of the loft in a sort of semi-circle. Each were nursing drinks that were in front of them, clearly all in various states of inebriation. "OK." A female voice from off screen spoke. It was clearly Maureen. "I'm gonna ask a question, and all of you have to answer truthfully. No making shit up." She giggled. "First question, when and with whom did you lose your virginity? Collins, you're first."_

"_Let's see." Collins leaned back on his elbows. "I was 17, it was the fourth of July, and his name was Max Jones."_

"_And how was it?" Maureen asked._

"_Well it wasn't his first time so…" Collins trailed off, a huge grin on his face. "Let's just say there were a lot of fireworks that night."_

"_OK, Roger what you?"_

_Roger was clearly the most drunk of the three, otherwise he wouldn't have agreed to do this. "Veronica Andrews…almost sixteen…at her senior prom._

_Mark rolled his eyes. "Figures."_

"_And your story is any less predictable?" Roger challenged._

"_Rosalyn Phillips. I was 20. It was sometime in the fall." Mark shrugged. There was enough alcohol in his system to prevent him from being embarrassed by such a simple question._

_Roger looked at him for a second. "I thought for sure you were a virgin until you met Maureen."_

"_Oh no." Maureen denied. "Marky was definitely not a virgin when he met me." His cheeks did redden a little at that comment. There was a pause. "Next question…Where is the wildest place that you've ever had sex? Roger you first this time."_

_Roger didn't answer for a moment, thinking over the question. Finally he scratched his head. "I guess it was probably when I did it with this girl in the Life Café bathroom."_

"_And you Collins?"_

"_Mo, you know I'm the kind of guy who likes this type of thing to be romantic and private." Collins took a sip of his drink. _

"_So where was it?" She pressed._

"_Airplane bathroom on the way to Europe." He grinned a little._

_Maureen just laughed at the joke that Collins made before advancing onto her ex. "Mark, what about you?"_

_Now his cheeks did go bright red. "You already know the answer to that Maureen."_

"_Well yeah, but Roger and Collins don't…And this tape is gonna be for after you're famous. We can sneak copies of it onto the street for all of your fans and give you your first big scandal. It will be fabulous. Now answer the question."_

"_Onthelawnchairthat'sontheroof." Mark's head lowered and he spoke the words quickly. _

"_What was that Marky? We couldn't hear you."_

"_On the lawn chair that's on the roof." This time he spoke slowly and deliberately._

_Roger's express turned from laughter at his friend's embarrassment to disbelief. "That's…that's…I sit on that chair!"_

The scene cut off and the screen was black for a few seconds. In that period of time a voice came from behind Mark. "Mark, the movie upstairs is over. Are you all set down here?"

He turned around to face the woman who was in her forties, with a matronly look about her. "Yeah Rose." He nodded, switching the projector off, and removing his reel of film. "Do you need some help closing up?"

"That would be wonderful." The two didn't say much else until they were upstairs, Mark had started sweeping the lobby floor, where stray pieces of popcorn and gum wrappers littered the black and white checkered tiles. " So how's your film coming along?" She asked as she started emptying the register.

"Actually, I think I'm almost done." Mark admitted. It had only taken him four years to get it to the point where he was really happy with it. "I just need to piece together some of the footage I found tonight, and then find a good ending."

Rose smiled before ducking down behind the counter to her safe. "That's wonderful. You'll have to let me know when it's done so we can premiere it here."

He blushed a little at the thought of his film actually in a theater. "Don't be crazy. You have actual movies to show here. Nobody would show up to see my film. You'd lose money."

"I don't need the money." She pointed out as she stood back up. It was true. Rose was part of a well off family, and she only ran the theater because her husband was the previous owner. "I want to show it."

"People wouldn't come." He repeated.

She shrugged. "So we use a little trickery. We show it before the movie they show up for and only charge them for that one."

Mark shook his head, putting the broom back in it's place behind the snack counter. "Rose, you're crazy."

"No, I want to help you Mark. Now, you should go home and get some rest. I can finish up here." She stepped out from the ticket booth smiling.

He was going to listen, and grabbed his coat from where he kept it behind the counter. As he slipped into it he glanced around the theater's lobby. It was old, run down, but still had an antique beauty to it. Mark knew it didn't get the business it deserved, but business actually was starting to pick up, which didn't surprise him. He suspected it had to do with the fact that Rose refused to change the prices of tickets and snacks while all the other places in town kept raising them. He just didn't get why she kept it the way it was…why she kept it at all. "Rose, why do you stay with this place?" He asked her quietly.

She smiled again, walking out closer. "To honor my husband. He loved this place…He was a lot like you. Always with a camera. After he passed on I couldn't part with it, so I've just kept things the way they were." He had to smile, the way she was so happy about being able to do that. "And he would want to screen your film here too."

"Well I can't say no to that one." Mark sighed, rather contentedly. "If I don't get sick I should be able to finish it by the end of the week…OK, well I'll see you tomorrow."

"I'll see you then Mark. Have a good night."

OK, I know that that was a bit shorter than usual but I'll have more up very soon, and I wanted this chapter to illustrate what his job was really like and to move time along once more. This puts them towards the end of August of the year after the car accident that killed Richard.

Sorry that there was no Mark/Roger fluff in this chapter, but I just couldn't find away to fit it in. I will fit some more in soon.


	18. Bohemia Night

Disclaimer: I still don't own it. The song used is again by the local duo, David and Lucas.

Author's notes: OK, well…unfortunately the story is winding down. It's only going to be this chapter, and then I will post two endings, a happy one, and a sad one. And then I will get to work on my next story…which I haven't quite worked out yet, but I have lots of ideas, so it won't be very long.

I chose the song that I did, because A) I can't write songs, and B) I think it really fits the attitude that Mark and Roger have adopted in this fic.

_Italics are flashbacks._

"**Stuff in quotes that's bold is song lyrics.**"

Roger looked around the crowded theater, with Mark's camera in his hand. It didn't feel right…being here without him. People were milling about, struggling to find seats that were decent. Maureen and Joanne were holding seats up front of the front row that held couches instead of chairs. He stood next to Collins who was also just watching the crowd. Roger panned the camera around the room making sure to catch glimpses of all the young people that were there. "September 13th 9:45 eastern standard time." He narrated quietly. "Welcome to the first and probably only Bohemia night at Mark's place of work, where we'll be showing his film and I'll play a song or two."

"Speaking of which you have to go tune your guitar." Collins interrupted. "I'll take over the filming."

Roger nodded and started heading to the backroom where Mark's boss had had him store his guitar. With a sigh he sat down and started to check the sound of the acoustic guitar that he had brought, thinking on how the night had come to be.

_Roger stood from his position leaning against the outside wall of the theater when he saw Mark come out from inside. "So are you done sweeping the floor of that place?"_

"_Yeah." Mark nodded, wrapping his black and white scarf around his neck. It was only September, but slight chills in the air got to him easily. "I thought I told you to just head home." He chastised a little, but not really caring._

_Roger slipped a hand around Mark's waist as they started walking. "You did. But I couldn't leave you to walk home alone."_

_Mark rolled his eyes, but said nothing at the musician's caring nature. "Thanks. I'm sorry it took so long. I was waiting to talk to Rose, but she was busy. It seems all the customers wanted to talk to her."_

"_What about?" Roger could see a happy glint in his friend's eyes. He had a feeling it had to do with more than just the fact that he had been able to see his film in a real theater._

"_They liked it!" Mark exclaimed after a brief moment of silence. "They liked my film."_

_Now Roger was grinning. "That's great Mark."_

"_Rose wants to show it again. Some of the people said they were going to tell their friends about it."_

"_It looks like we've got a blockbuster on our hands then." Roger stopped walking when they hit a corner. "I'm real proud of you Mark."_

_It was odd to hear the words come out of his mouth. Roger didn't just offer his praises like that. Most of he time, you just had to realize that he was thinking something like that. "Thanks."_

_After that they didn't say much else. Roger couldn't really bring himself to be too happy about the whole thing. Sure, Mark was his love, and Mark was really happy, but there was a problem. Everyone knew that Mark was getting weaker and running out of time. It had been full on AIDS for only seven months, but it was just attacking his body. He hadn't shown any true signs of dying as of yet; Roger knew it was just a matter of time. Mark had said it himself. He didn't plan on going until finished his film. And now he had._

The rest had happened in a whirlwind of activity. The next showing of the film had attracted more people, who told their friends, and then there was another that got more people to come. This prompted Rose to design an official premiere for the movie. A Night of Bohemia she had called it. They would show the film, and she had Mark convince Roger to play a song before the show. It made sense to her to also give Roger's career as a musician a boost along with Mark's.

So that was how he had ended up there, tuning his guitar. But he didn't really want to be there. He wanted to be at the loft. The loft was where Mark was. Not at the theater like he should have.

"_Do you want me to call Rose? I can have her postpone the Bohemia night." Roger offered quietly, rubbing small circles in his back. _

_A fit of coughs had just finished wracking Mark's body. He had thrown up twice already in the day, not that he had been able to throw up much with his esophagitis flaring up once more. He was barely able to talk. It was not a good day. In fact it was probably the worst day. He just shook his head at Roger's question, ignoring the pain that it caused his headache._

"_Well I'm calling her and telling her that we can't make it." Roger sighed, grabbing Mark's glass of water and handing it to him. "You're not going out like this."_

_Mark didn't actually want to speak. His chest rattled a little with every breath, and his throat felt like it had been scraped raw with sandpaper. "You should still go..." He trailed off to cough, and drink some water. "You're supposed to play your song."_

"_Mark I'm not going anywhere with you like this." Roger shook his head now. "You're more important than that song."_

_He drank more water, swallowing gingerly. "Just tell her I can't make it for now." He paused, coughing again. "Who knows, I might get better enough by tonight so that you can leave me alone for three hours." This sentence led to another long fit of coughs._

"_Yeah we'll see about that." Roger rolled his eyes a little, but did as Mark asked. _

_The rest of the day Roger was surprised at the sudden turnaround. Mark had slept a lot; the fever hadn't gone down, but the amount of coughing did, and when he had woken up, Mark had claimed that his throat wasn't nearly as sore. But as the time came around, Roger still didn't want to leave. _

"_Roger, I'll be fine for a few hours." Mark tried to convince him, pausing after every sentence to take a drink. "Please…just go and film everything for me. There's no reason for you to miss it."_

_Roger really wanted to argue, but he couldn't bring himself to when he saw Mark's eyes pleading with him a little. Mark really wanted to be able to see this night, and he wanted Roger to go out and have fun. So it was with a resigned sigh that he made sure Mark had everything he would need, grabbed the camera and his guitar, and left the loft._

After he was done tuning he took his guitar with him out to the main theater once more. He checked in with Rose, who told him to just go up on the small stage in front of the movie screen when he was ready. Then he went down to the couch where Collins, Maureen and Joanne sat. Collins was panning the room the camera, Maureen kept trying to jump into the shot. "And here comes Roger Davis, brilliant musician, who will be performing momentarily." Collins narrated. "Tell us Roger…are you prepared to go back into a world were drunk and fawning groupies hang on your every word hoping to get a piece of that ass of yours?"

Roger laughed a little. "I don't think that's gonna happen."

"You'd be surprised." Collins spoke as if he knew that this would happen. "Are you all set to play your song?"

"Yeah. I'm gonna go up in a sec." Roger nodded.

Maureen propped herself into Joanne's lap, as though she had realized she wasn't going to get into the shot. "Well you're gonna be great." She encouraged, in an attitude that was brought on by the wine she and Joanne had drank before their arrival.

"Yeah I hope so…" Roger muttered glancing down to the guitar. "I'd better go start."

He left the trio, and went onto the stage, sitting on a stool that was in front of a microphone that had been set up for him. There was a sudden hush that fell over the crowd and he was then aware of the sets of eyes watching him. Every person in the theater had a seat, and were now eagerly awaiting what it was he had to say. His hands were actually shaking a little, but he knew it wasn't all nerves. There was an energy in the room. But there was part of it that was nerves. This was Mark's night. All of the people that were crowding the theater were here to see Mark's film…so it was weird for him to be performing. Mark had wanted it though, and Roger wanted the night to be perfect for him; he was nervous that the song wouldn't be good enough.

With a glance into the camera lens being held up by Collins, he took a deep breath. "Hey, I'm Roger Davis. You're all here to see my friend Mark's film. Mark wanted me to play this song for you. It's called 'To Those Days.'"

"**Blinded by deliberation,**

**Hold the truths to greater lives, **

**Though dark corners fold into another.**

**Gray mornings may come with the blankets cold.**

**My days will be young, but my spirits will grow old.**

**And I will carry on.**

**Keep above you're falling down, you're falling to your knees.**

**Memories in the back of your mind, memories unending**

**To those days, to those days**

**When I held your hand you knew what to say**

**Oh, to those days.**

**Time and time again, I followed you with hope and a smile**

**And it soothed the bitterness of my lifelong trials,**

**That stole me away**

**You guided my way.**

**Though gray mornings may come with the blankets cold, **

**My days will be young but my spirits will grow old.**

**And I will carry on.**

**Keep above you're falling down, you're falling to your knees.**

**Memories in the back of your mind, memories unending**

**To those days, to those days**

**When I held your hand, you knew what to say**

**Oh, to those days.**

**When I held you hand, you knew what to say**

**Oh, to those days.**

**Keep above you're falling down, you're falling to your knees**

**Memories, oh those memories**

**To those days**

**When I hold your hand, I'll know what to say**

**Woah, to those days.**"

Roger waited to the end of the applause before speaking again. "Thanks." He paused. "Mark really wanted you to hear that song." An even longer pause. "Mark was really looking forward tonight. Unfortunately, he couldn't be here tonight, but I know that he really appreciates that you guys have come out to see his film, and if he were here, he'd be saying something unbelievably sentimental to you all about all the work that went into this over the four years that he's been working on it, but I'm not very good at that shit." He saw Collins laugh from behind the camera. "So I'll just let you guys watch the movie…Thanks for coming."

As he left the stage, the lights dimmed and a flickering on the screen started before the title was revealed. Today 4 U: Proof Positive.

The endings will be up soon. Promise. Thanks for reviews.


	19. Happy Ending

Disclaimer: I do not own RENT or it's characters.

Author's notes: As the title indicates: This is the happy ending. If you want the sad ending, read the next post. If you want happy stay here. Also the word ending is indicated, because this is the end of this fic unless you read the sad ending as well. Then that would be the end of the fic. Thanks to all reviewers.

As it is the ending it's kind of short. And by kind of, I mean very. Sorry about that.

Roger entered the loft, trying to be quiet, figuring that Mark was probably asleep. And as he flicked the light switch on, placing his guitar case on the floor he learned that he was right. Mark was asleep. Just not in his room where he had left him. Mark was sprawled on the couch, under a few blankets, with Musetta curled underneath his chin.

He was virtually silent closing the door, and walking over to the living room area, placing the camera on the crate, and sitting on the edge of the couch, where Mark wasn't propped. Roger placed a hand gently on Mark's forehead, relieved to find that while it was still radiating heat it was far less. Resigned not to disturb him he bent over, placing a light kiss on his forehead, then stood back up, ready to go into his room and get some sleep.

"Roger, you home?" The voice was quiet, horse, and groggy, but Roger knew it was Mark.

"Yeah." He nodded, and turned back around, facing the filmmaker who was moving the cat away from his chin. "I'm sorry I woke you. Go back to sleep."

Mark ignored him, sitting up and reaching around for his water, and then his glasses that were next to it. "How'd tonight go?"

Roger sat on the couch, realizing how in vain it would be to try and convince Mark to sleep without hearing about it. "It went really well. Everyone loved your film." He paused. "I heard some people. They were really into it."

"What about the song?" He drank more water. "Did they like your song?"

"I think so." Roger reached over and started petting Musetta. He wouldn't admit it, but he had grown as affectionate to the cat as he had for Mark. "But you know they were all there for you. I could have just played Musetta's Waltz and they would have been clapping."

Mark laughed a little, rolling his eyes. "Not the way you play it."

"Watch it." Roger warned pretending to be offended. "Come on, you need rest. Let's get you to bed."

"But I want to hear all about the night." Mark protested a little as Roger stood.

Roger gestured to the camera. "It's all on film, you can see it in the morning."

"Fine." He pouted a little like a child, but removed Musetta and gathered up the blankets, following Roger into the room they now shared, the room that was previously just Roger's.

Roger settled Mark into the bed first, like he always did, making sure that he was tucked in and comfortable, and that he had access to everything that he might need. Then he climbed into the bed behind him, wrapping his arms around the filmmaker's waist, pulling him close, to the point where each curvature of their bodies matched up; they fit together like two puzzle pieces, a fact that they had discovered a long time ago.

Mark was already drifting off to sleep. Roger could hear the rattling breaths evening out to a slow and steady rhythm. Roger closed his eyes as well, letting the breaths lull him into sleep, but a sound drifting in through the walls kept him awake.

"Speak!"

"Mark Cohen? This is William Hickory, from Assorline Productions. I was at the showing of your film tonight, and I want to tell you how impressed I was with your work. Assorline productions is interested in talking with you about releasing your film in a more widespread area. We also think your friend Roger Davis might be able to work on a soundtrack for it. Call us back as soon as you get the chance."

He left a number, but Roger didn't really hear it. A smile was too busy spreading across his face. It was possible that things were finally starting to really go right. He was pretty sure that things were finally fitting together.

There's the happy ending. Again I am so sorry about the length.


	20. Sad Ending

Disclaimer: RENT does not belong to me.

Author's notes: This is the sad ending. If you want a happy ending then go back one chapter. You'll notice if you've read both that they start sort of similar. That was on purpose.

Sorry, but I think this one is even shorter than the happy one. Oh well…it is an ending.

And Mark is not supposed to make sense.

Roger entered the loft, trying to be quiet, figuring that Mark was probably asleep. And as he flicked the light switch on, placing his guitar case on the floor he learned that he was wrong. A hacking cough echoed in the apartment. He rushed in, forgetting about the door and went into the room he was sharing with Mark. Mark was on his side coughing violently. There were splatters of blood across his sheets, and dribbling a bit out of his mouth.

"Oh god." Roger quickly knelt near him starting to rub circles on his friends back, the therapy that had somewhat helped him before. Just the simple touch allowed Roger to feel a great deal of heat through Mark's shirt. "You were getting better." His voice had already gained more emotion, guilt of leaving Mark alone taking over.

Even though he was so hot, a shiver still ripped through Mark's body. It was clear that he wasn't the Mark that Roger had gotten so used to lately. It was the child like Mark, making his first appearance in a long time. "Roger can you hold me?"

"Yeah Mark." Roger didn't even think about it. He quickly got into the bed behind Mark, wrapping his arms around the filmmaker's waist and pulling him in close gingerly, to the point where each curvature of their bodies matched up; they fit together like two puzzle pieces, a fact they had discovered long ago. He then made a quick decision as he felt Mark's chest's rattling go through to his own. "Mark, the night was amazing…" He sighed. "They all loved your film. Everyone was so excited to see it. There was this energy. You would have loved it." He paused until Mark's hacking was over again. "I have it all on film for you…but I wish you could have been there, to see everyone's faces."

Mark sighed a little. "That sounds like…la vie boheme. We should do that again."

Roger couldn't say anything in response. Mark was fading, he could tell, he remembered seeing Angel like this. The very thought paralyzed his speech temporarily. Mark was going to leave him.

"Roger…" He coughed again, and then his voice got more upset, as though he was on the verge of tears. "I don't want to die alone."

"You're not going to die alone." Roger pointed out quickly, his ability to talk back. "I'm here. I'm not going anywhere." The truth was that he didn't think he would be able to move. If Mark left him he didn't think that he would be able to go on. He didn't want to be alone.

He could see a glass on Mark's table one that was once filled with water. The idea struck him, his mind going back to a time many years ago, when he had walked into the bathroom to find a bloody bathtub. With another sigh he reached, over his long callused fingers wrapping themselves around the glass.

"What are you doing?" Mark coughed again at the disruption of his body.

"Nothing." Roger spoke in his most soothing voice. "I'm just going to go with you." He slammed the glass into the table, a fragment remaining in his hands while the rest fell to the floor. "Just close your eyes."

"That sounds good…" Mark trailed off closing his eyes.

Roger gave a resigned sigh, before bringing the glass to one wrist, dragging it across, then doing the same with the other, and then putting his arms back around Mark. He closed his eyes, and started to breath as Mark did, until the breathing got slower and slower, until it finally stopped all together.

"Speak!"

Musetta froze, in the doorway to Mark and Roger's room at the sound of the answering machine.

"Mark Cohen? This is William Hickory, from Assorline Productions. I was at the showing of your film tonight, and I want to tell you how impressed I was with your work. Assorline productions is interested in talking with you about releasing your film in a more widespread area. We also think your friend Roger Davis might be able to work on a soundtrack for it. Call us back as soon as you get the chance."

He left a number, but Musetta walked the rest of the way into the room. Her paws dipped into the blood that was on the floor before she jumped onto the bed and forced her way in between the two bodies of her former owners, curling up and going to sleep.

That is the end of this story. I will be posting the start of a new one soon.


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